


The Butterfly Effect

by iguanastevens



Series: A Heart Beats At Night [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergent, Content Warnings in Author's Note, M/M, Vampire Character, Werewolf character, happy ending but boy they don't have fun getting there, like it's canon in a blender, please for the love of all that is good, read the author's notes for warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iguanastevens/pseuds/iguanastevens
Summary: Otabek could hear cars as he climbed to his feet, the whoosh and whir and shrill honk of horns cutting through the trees. He looked for the source and stumbled, caught off balance by a missing shoe and the too-loud, too-close buzz of the street. He shook his head; the world's volume had been turned up, and with it drawn to his attention, he couldn't shut it out. Dead leaves rustled in a dull roar. A squirrel chittered in the branches above, sharp enough to make him wince, and tinny strains of muffled music scratched at his ears like a mosquito's whine, and the air was heavy with the scent of damp soil and the surrounding city.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, an explanation: This is essentially an AU of my fic [A Heart Beats At Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9342170). I changed one tiny detail of an early event in the main story, and then I let it spiral out from there to become its own thing. I'm not sure how much sense it will make if you don't read that first - while the plot of this is going to be completely independent, I'm not going to rehash most of my worldbuilding and lore.  
> If you have already read Heart and would like to refresh your memory, you can skim [chapter ten](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9342170/chapters/21727220) and that'll give you everything you need in terms of what I'm using as a jumping-off point. If you want to get really intense, you could also go back to [chapter six](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9342170/chapters/21425624#workskin), AKA the point I realized that hey, I love angst. 
> 
> **CONTENT WARNINGS AND NOTES**  
>  There _may or may not_ be temporary major character death. That is, _if_ someone dies, they'll get better.  
>  There _will_ be fairly graphic depictions of injury and (probably) violence.  
>  I _will_ try to make you cry any way I possibly can. 
> 
> For this first chapter specifically: there is a scene with needles and a blood draw in a medical setting. 
> 
> If you would like more information or details about specific content, please let me know! My philosophy is that I can't warn for every possible trigger, but I can definitely answer questions about if something in particular will be included and help you figure out if you want to read it.

       The bare branches overhead drew a spiderweb of grey and brown across the bright sky. They shifted in the slow breeze. Otabek blinked through the haze of sleep that blurred his eyes. He'd have to call the landlord and explain that his ceiling had gone missing.

       The thought, which had crept across his mind as slowly as syrup, prodded him towards consciousness. The wave of pain that swept through his body as he jolted upright finished the task, and Otabek found himself sitting on the forest floor, surrounded by trees and piles of frost-rimed leaves. His heart was pounding in his ears. It was loud enough to drown out the panicked whirl of his mind, its heat flushing the tingle of late winter's chill from his bare skin. Otabek fought past the stiffness in his limbs - it felt as if every fiber of his muscles was being torn from their moorings - in a desperate search for any reason that might explain why he'd woken up at dawn in the middle of the woods.

       Nothing.

       He forced his breath to slow, to steady, soothing the dizzy spin of his head. Just as the mounting tension as he waited for his scores in the Kiss and Cry did nothing to change the numbers that appeared, neither would letting his emotions run wild let him close his eyes and wake up to the hum of traffic outside his bedroom window. That would be dealt with later.

       Otabek could hear cars as he climbed to his feet, the whoosh and whir and shrill honk of horns cutting through the trees. He looked for the source and stumbled, caught off balance by a missing shoe and the too-loud, too-close buzz of the street. He shook his head; the world's volume had been turned up, and with it drawn to his attention, he couldn't shut it out. Dead leaves rustled in a dull roar. A squirrel chittered in the branches above, sharp enough to make him wince, and tinny strains of muffled music scratched at his ears like a mosquito's whine, and the air was heavy with the scent of damp soil and the surrounding city.

 _Music._ After pulling off his remaining shoe and mud-crusted socks, he started towards the sound. It echoed with the rhythmic crunch of jogging feet on gravel paths and a _click-click_ that nagged at him, familiar yet implacable.

       After what couldn't have been more than a few minutes of walking, the open grass and criss-crossed paths of Krestovsky Island opened up before him. A woman was running with her dog on the trail nearest to Otabek. A pop song was leaking out of her headphones - Otabek's breath caught as he realized he could make out the lyrics, but he pushed the thought aside - punctuated by the tap of her dog's toenails on the ground.

       Low dawn light glinted in the grass, sparkling against something other than the frost that was quickly melting into dew, and Otabek carefully stepped over the shards of broken glass half-buried at the edge of the woods. The relative emptiness of the park; no one was close enough to notice that the man wandering out from between the trees was shoeless, streaked with mud, and - Otabek lifted a hand to his jaw. His fingers came away speckled with dried blood.

       Part of him wanted to cry, but it was distant and numb behind the eerie calm that had settled over him. Shock, probably. He sighed and wet the hem of his grimy t-shirt in his mouth, using it to scrub the worst of the mess off his face, then the park to find a taxi or a phone.

       Otabek steeled himself as a cab pulled over.

       "I don't have my wallet, but if you lend me your phone I can call someone who will pay when you drop me off," he said in one breath.

       The driver blinked at him. "You're Otabek Altin, right?"

       Otabek nodded, taken aback. Getting recognized wasn't something he'd anticipated, and he wasn't sure if it would be helpful or land him on the front page of a tabloid desperate enough to run stories on foreign athletes. "I am."

       The man smiled and waved him in. Otabek climbed in and immediately wanted to roll down the window to disperse the overwhelming odor of gasoline and countless previous passengers, but the air outside was just as harsh in his nose.

       The fifteen-minute drive was filled with chatter that warded off the nerves that were trying to sink their teeth in. Between questions about whether he wanted to go to a police station or the hospital, and was he _sure_ that he should be dropped off at his apartment, he learned that the driver's wife had moved to St. Petersburg from Kazakhstan for university and followed Otabek's career since he entered the senior division. Otabek scribbled a name and address on the back of a receipt so he could send his thanks later, trying not to notice the dull thump of their heartbeats underscoring the conversation like a drum, or the sticky, scratchy fibers of the car's floor against bare feet that should have been chilled beyond sensation.

       He'd call the police. He'd call his doctor. He'd tell them...

       Otabek watched the buildings flit by, trying to remember, but only came up with a picture of the full moon hanging above him as he ran and ran.

:: :: ::

       "Oi, Beka!" Yuri called as he spotted Otabek at the rink's edge. The uncomfortable stone that had been growing in his stomach dissolved. Almost. Otabek's gaze was distant as he looked at Yuri. "I texted you, like, five hundred times. Did you get kidnapped by aliens last night or what?"

       "I lost my phone," replied Otabek. He bent down to slip off his skate guards.

       Yuri considered himself fluent in Otabek Altin. He scowled. "You're being weird."

       "Still a bit sick." Otabek glanced across the ice. "Yakov looks pissed. I should warm up."

       Grumbling, Yuri turned back to his own practice. He tried not to worry about Otabek - it was just a cold, albeit a cold from hell, so why was he still sick? Worlds was less than a couple of weeks away. None of them could afford to miss practice now, except perhaps Yuri, who had begun to believe that no amount of training could make up for the extra centimeters of height he'd gained. It would be a shitshow for him, but _someone_ had to knock JJ down a few pegs.

       It wasn't until a few minutes later, after popping another jump he'd been doing for six years, that Yuri realized Otabek had never admitted illness. He'd be coughing his lungs up and still insist that he was fine. Fuck, he'd fallen in competition, broken a finger, and not even mentioned it until after he got his score.

       Either Otabek was in no shape to be on the ice, and should probably be taken to the hospital, or he was lying.

       Yuri turned to watch him.

       This was always a risk; it was easy to get lost in observation, following the arc of Otabek's skates or line of his legs. Yuri wouldn't be surprised if he could spend an entire day staring, frozen in place. In his book, it would be a good use of the time. Yakov, unfortunately, disagreed. Yuri grabbed his water bottle and took a slow drink.

       Otabek's movements were stiff and hesitant, full of stops and starts as if his body wasn't completely under his command. It was, in some respects, like looking into a mirror - the shift in Yuri's center of balance left him feeling like he was a passenger with only tentative control. However, Otabek was well past his growth spurts.

       Otabek jumped. Yuri frowned. Too high for a double, wrong rotation for a quad or even a triple - if anything, it looked like he'd misjudged the necessary force.

 _Dumbass,_ Yuri thought, skating over as Otabek picked himself up off the ice.

       "Beka, what the actual fuck," he growled.

       A small crease dented the skin between Otabek's eyebrows and he hunched his shoulders defensively.

       "You need to tell Yakov you're sick and go to the damn doctor, Altin," Yuri said, grabbing Otabek's wrist. The skin was hot under his fingers. "Shit, I can feel your fever, are you a fucking idiot?"

       "I'm okay, Yura," mumbled Otabek. He ran his other hand through his hair. Yuri relaxed; _this_ was Otabek, stubborn as a fucking mule. "I- yeah. Thought I was getting better."

       He had been. Yuri shook his head in empathetic frustration, because as shitty as his year had been so far, Otabek's was catching up.

       "Want me to go with you?" Yuri asked quietly. This close, the dark circles under Otabek's eyes were obvious.

       "It's fine," Otabek demurred, but the worried crease in his forehead remained. "Come by after practice? You can help me find my phone."

       Yuri nodded and gently squeezed Otabek's wrist before letting him go and returning to practice. 

:: :: ::

       Otabek paced through his apartment, but wearing holes in the carpet had done nothing to make sense of the senseless mess. The tracking software on his laptop informed him that his phone was in a park only a few blocks away, nowhere near Krestovsky Island. The thermometer read thirty-nine degrees no matter how many times he checked, but he didn't feel feverish.

       And then there was skating.

       It wasn't like the last few days of practice, when he was left fatigued and lightheaded from the lingering cough. It was the opposite. His body was too light, his muscles too ready to spring into action, with no trace of the soreness he'd felt upon waking. He hadn't adjusted to the _lack_ of weakness from being ill, he told himself. The noise of the rink clashed in his ears, leaving him jumpy and on edge, because the congestion had finally cleared and he could hear normally again. It just seemed louder than it was supposed to be.

       Otabek tried to forget the soft murmur of Yuri's cussing, audible across the building, as he fought through his jump sequences.

       "So where do you think you left your fucking phone?" Yuri said by way of greeting as Otabek opened the door. The ice rink clung to his clothes and hair, bringing traces of ice and sweat inside with him. "Did you get to the doctor without passing out?"

       "Kynaz'-Vladimirskiy, and I have an appointment tomorrow." Otabek stepped back to let Yuri into the narrow hall. Conflicting urges battled in his mind - half of him wanted to bury his face in Yuri's shoulder and tell him everything, from waking up in the woods to how the world was suddenly too loud and close, and the other half screamed at him to push Yuri back out the door and lock it, to sequester himself until he could answer the unavoidable, endless questions.

       He hadn't called the police. He had nothing to tell them, nothing to report. It would only be several hours sitting in waiting rooms and talking to officers who looked at him with small frowns and asked if he'd been to a doctor.

       "Okay, set up your GPS or whatever on my phone and I'll go find it," Yuri continued, shoving the mobile into Otabek's hands. "You take a nap."

       "Yura, I'm okay." Otabek felt a little better for the repetition. He was okay. He'd be okay. He'd gone sleepwalking, lost his phone, and... it didn't matter, as long as it didn't happen again. "If I faint, you'll just have to carry me back."

       "Drag you by an ankle, more like," Yuri snorted. "If you're lucky. Where's your coat?"

       "It's not that cold out."

       Yuri tipped his head. "It's about freezing. You'll be begging for my jacket in fifteen seconds and you know it."

       It didn't feel cold. It must be the fever, Otabek decided, as they tracked the blinking dot on Yuri's map.

       "Got it!" Otabek called, crawling out from behind the hedge. Maybe someone had picked his pocket and then tossed the phone when they realized it was old and next to worthless.

       Steel shone by his palm. Otabek picked up a keychain - _his_ keychain, with his old penlight - and looked around again. Dim memories of the moonlit park flickered. What else might have been in his pockets? His wallet had been safe on his bedside table, his motorcycle keys on their hook by the door. Nothing of value was missing. Nothing at all.

       Except a single running shoe, which lay half-hidden under the hedge.

       Otabek tried to swallow the rush of confused panic. A bare foot, Krestovsky Island, the kilometers between them, the missing night that he kept trying to shrink to mere hours, all closing around him like shadows with dark, grasping claws, scraping and scratching and shredding every answer he thought he'd wrestled into logical order. His fist closed around the keys, tightening until a dull throb of pain dragged his attention back to the present. Drops of blood stood out on his skin where the key's teeth dug into his palm.

       He wiped it off on his jeans and examined the unmarked skin.

       "Beka, did you get lost or something?" Yuri said, peering around the bush. "Oh, good, it's not even broken."

       Otabek nodded, his throat too tight for breath or words.

:: :: ::

       Mila's apartment was, had always been, and probably would always be an unholy mess. Yuri was in no position to judge, but cat hair was at least reasonable.

       " _Baba_ , why the hell is there a jar of dead plant stuff under your bed?"

       "That's lavender, and it's there because I want it there," Mila called back. She poked her head around the door. "Did you find my travel adaptor?"

       "Like, fifteen." Yuri wrinkled his nose as he shook dust from his hair. "Would it kill you to vacuum? Anyway-" he tossed the heap of chargers at her feet- "looks like you've got China, US, another one for China, fuck if I know, _Japan._ Oh, two of them."

       "I need two," Mila replied, snatching them from his hands. He scowled. "Get your own. You're free to vacuum if you want."

       "Why am I helping you pack, anyway?" Yuri grumbled, tossing the others back under her bed.

       "Because you showed up while I was packing and I told you to make yourself useful if you were going to bitch at me."

       That was, in fact, exactly what had happened. Yuri went in search of Mila's neglected vacuum while she boiled water for tea. He worked quickly, more than a little concerned that she'd hand him a mug of miscellaneous, unidentified plants scrounged from another of her endless jars.

       "Text Beka, tell him to get over here." Yuri bit his lip and peered into his cup before taking a cautious sip. Otabek always finished packing early - early enough that he spent two days before the flight living out of a suitcase in his own apartment.

       "Text him yourself."

       Yuri took another gulp of tea, sputtering as it burned his tongue. "He hasn't been texting me back."

       "Yura," Mila sighed, "In the past week, have you talked to him about anything other than Worlds?"

       He glowered at her. _She_ wasn't the one who'd been missing jumps all season. _She_ wasn't the one for whom flying out to Japan felt like walking to her own public execution. So fucking sue him, he'd been complaining.

       "Maybe he doesn't want to talk about a competition he had to drop," Mila continued, speaking slowly like she was explaining something important to a toddler. "Yura, you need to give him some space."

       His mug hit the table, spilled drops sloshing over his hand and scalding it. "He _what._ "

       "You didn't know?" Mila frowned. "Yura-"

       "I guess someone forgot to fucking tell me," Yuri snarled, knocking the chair back as he stood up. Otabek's chorus of distracted reassurances, his missed practice time, the unanswered texts - Yuri's gut twisted with anger and guilt. The door to Mila's flat slammed shut behind him.

       Otabek was waiting for him in the hall, and Yuri thought that Mila must have given him a heads-up. He hadn't lost his phone again, then. Otabek's eyes were fixed on the threadbare, greyish carpet as he slouched.

       "You're out of Worlds." Yuri leaned against the opposite wall, crossing his arms over his chest to stop their shaking. "Which I just heard from Mila a few minutes ago."

       "Sorry," Otabek mumbled.

       Yuri clenched his fists. His nails sunk into the skin, stinging. "You're sorry."

       "I-" A hot flush ran across Otabek's cheekbones, but his skin was too pale. The circles under his eyes looked like bruises. Yuri bit his lip. "I was-"

       "You kept telling me you were fine and now you're sick enough to miss a major competition and you've been avoiding me and you're saying _sorry_?" Yuri hated the shrill edge that had crept into his voice, hated how it made Otabek flinch away from him. "I want to know that you're not fucking dying on me!"

       He stopped, trying to catch the quick gulps of air that shuddered in his chest. Otabek was staring at him now, wide-eyed, silent. _Of course he was okay,_ Yuri berated himself. People missed competitions without warning all the time. It wasn't surprising that he didn't want to deal with Yuri's complaints, and there was more to their friendship - his heart lurched at the word, but he wasn't ready to let it take another name, not yet - than skating.

       "Yura? Yura, I didn't mean to worry you. I'm sorry. I'm- I'm fine. I didn't want to... to stress you out."

       "I get to decide what I stress out about," Yuri rasped, shaking his head. "Damn, Beka, what god did you piss off?"

       "Wish I knew." Otabek paused, rubbing a hand across his face. His face was tight, and the tiny frown was back between his eyes. For an instant, Yuri thought about reaching over to smooth the crease with his thumb, to brush the stray lock of hair from Otabek's forehead. "It's just- just an ear infection. Balance is off. Can't skate right."

       "An ear infection." Yuri shivered in solidarity, remembering all too many nights in his childhood spent with a hot compress and tears streaming down his face as his grandparents exchanged worried looks over his head. "No wonder you look like shit."

       "Thanks, Yura," said Otabek, the corner of his mouth quirking into a tiny smile. "Have you finished packing?"

       He shrugged. "Haven't started." Otabek groaned, and Yuri laughed. "I'm going to wait until two in the morning and throw everything into my suitcase like always, it'll be fine."

       "You leave _tomorrow._ "

       "It's my routine, Beka." He shifted, glanced at his phone, and slipped it back into his pocket. "You're not coming to watch."

       "Yeah. I'll watch you, though."

       Yuri pretended that it wasn't a blow to have Otabek off the ice and out of the rink. "Have you had dinner?" he asked instead. "We can watch a movie."

       "I've eaten." Otabek shifted, his face tightening. "I'm- I don't want to get you sick."

       Ear infections weren't usually contagious. Yuri twisted a strand of hair between his fingers. "Are you tired?"

       "I- yeah," Otabek replied, his eyes flicking to his apartment door. "I should get some sleep. You too, Yura. It's a long flight."

       He slipped past Yuri with nothing more than a distant nod - no familiar brush of his hand on Yuri's elbow, no hug that lingered for a few long, silent seconds. Yuri pulled his hoodie closer around his shoulders as he left.

:: :: ::

       It was a relief to have fewer eyes watching him, but Otabek had never felt so lonely as he did when Yuri left for Japan. Every moment they spent together filled Otabek with a rising panic; he was sure that, at any moment, Yuri would realize that there was something wrong with him, something unnatural and dangerous.

       At first, the doctor's exam had been reassuring in its mundanity. She'd barely spared him a glance after skimming the nurse's notes. It wasn't rabies because he'd received post-exposure treatment after the dog bite, but they'd check anyway. It was probably nothing more than a fever. It was probably in his head. He should take care not to forget his medication, and he should make an appointment with his psychiatrist to discuss increasing his fluoxetine dosage. Just to be on the safe side, she added, they would test for toxins and refer him for a brain scan.

       The nurse who came in to draw blood was young - no, a student, he realized, checking her badge.

       "Oh, this should be quick," Lana said with a smile. "You have great veins."

       Otabek nodded his thanks, wondering privately about the overlap between medical staff and vampires as he avoided looking at the needle. It wasn't the weirdest compliment he'd received.

       His strictly averted attention wavered from the office's beige paint as she hummed in frustration. It had not been quick.

       "I can't get a full tube," she explained. "I think the needle is clotting off - don't worry, that's not uncommon - so I'm going to try a new poke."

       In the moment before Lana removed the needle, Otabek thought about the cut on his palm, the blood crusted on the side of his face when he woke up in the woods. He'd refused to think about it, but if there was no injury, then where-

       Otabek gasped as starbursts of pain exploded in his arm. It felt as if a chunk of flesh had been torn away. Lana squeaked, grabbing a wad of gauze in one hand to staunch the hot gush of blood and untying the tourniquet with the other. His mouth flooded with a copper tang. He'd bitten into his lip.

       "Don't worry," she said again, though her face was paler than it had been before. Droplets of his blood spattered her scrubs, a lurid on the pale blue fabric. "This happens sometimes."

       Her hands were shaking slightly as she lifted the gauze to reveal Otabek's arm. It was smeared with rusty stains, but the skin was unmarked. Lana brightened. "See? All fine. That may have been the tube, actually."

       A cut or scrape could vanish in seconds, but what if there was something in the way? A tiny needle, trapped within the healing tissue... Otabek's skin crawled as he thought of the creeping, tingling sensation of his flesh knitting back together under the gauze.

       They didn't have enough blood to run the tests. Otabek stood up and pulled his arm away from Lana.

       "I have to go," said Otabek. His voice echoed; it was coming from far away, muffled and distorted in his ears. Lana was protesting, trying to get him to sit down. She'd find another nurse, a doctor, he could take a few minutes' break- he waved her off.

       She followed him for a few steps when he stood to leave the room and a flash of panic flared. It wasn't normal, he wasn't normal, and she was trying to keep in him in the building so he could be observed and examined, inspected, teased apart. That wasn't the heat that burned behind the sudden wash of fear: what fanned those flames was the thought of what they might find.

       Lana apologized again and let him go.

       The hysteria that had been building for days no longer felt quite so irrational.

       Losing time.

       The way the cold didn't feel cold anymore, accompanied by a symptomless fever.

       The sounds and smells that overwhelmed him at every moment.

       And finally, the cut on his hand, the needle in his arm, and the memories that were the only trace of both.

       It could be all in his head. That was a terrifying prospect by itself, but now, it was beginning to frighten him less than any alternative he could come up with.

       He would stay off his bike, Otabek decided. He wasn't fit to be driving. He would wait a few days and find another doctor, from another office.

       He would handle this.


	2. Chapter 2

        His program would have medaled if it had been skated by someone else. Yuri did his best to distance himself, leaving thin blades against ice the only tether between himself and the traitorous body currently fumbling its way around the rink. His skeleton had eked out the last centimeters of growth, but the bones didn't fit together as they should.

        Worlds was his last competition of the season, but it felt like more than that. There was a slipperiness to the air, visceral and dreamy. It weighed down his skates. It clung to his elbows, his shoulders, his ribs. Above all, it promised:

_you will wake up soon._

        Yuri tried not to think too much about what it might mean to wake from the surreal world he'd landed in. Would he find his footing, reign in his gangling limbs, and climb back to the top? Or was _that_ the dream, the fantasy that his skills had a few more years to go before expiring and fading into obscurity?

        He stumbled as he caught himself peering into the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of Otabek.

        But no. He was alone here.

        The judges frowned down at their notes.

:: :: ::

_Fine._

_Nothing._

_Better._

        Yuri thought about throwing his phone, but decided that there wasn't a point unless he could chuck it directly at Otabek's stubborn skull. Maybe _that,_ at least, would get a reply that was more than one word. If he was really, really lucky, it wouldn't even be a lie.

 _I'm coming over,_ Yuri typed out. He scowled as he sent the text. He already knew what the reply would be.

_Sorry, I'_ _m_ _out tonight. Maybe tomorrow?_

        Heat prickled behind Yuri's eyes as he shoved his phone into his pocket without responding. Otabek would be out tomorrow, too, or he'd have plans to skype with family all night, or he'd never answer the text at all. Yuri had played this game often enough to know how it would go; it had been the new routine of their friendship - if one could call it that - in the week since Worlds.

        What if there really was something wrong?

        Yuri clenched his jaw, almost gagging as his throat clenched. He was disgusting, that he would hope for that, even for a second. No wonder Otabek was avoiding him.

        Fuck it. Even if he couldn't skate well, he could still skate. It would be better than sitting in his apartment all night and staring at his phone. Yuri grabbed his gym bag.

        It was odd to step onto the ice without the pressure of judgement dogging his heels. There were no judges to silently track every movement; instead of Yakov's shouts, Yuri could only hear the scrape and clack of his blades against the rink and his own breathing, which hung undisturbed in the chilly air.

        At fifteen, Yuri would have watched the smoke begin to rise and thrown gasoline on the sparks himself. If there was no fighting fate, he would run with it, watching the flames rise knowing that at least he'd been the one to set the fire.

        Perhaps Lilia's lectures on perseverance and grace had finally sunk in, or Yakov had scolded him enough about attempting jumps he knew he couldn't land so many times that it had become a mantra within his own head. Maybe it was simply his own refusal to be beaten, to be outdone by his own body's protests, by Otabek's pigheaded stubbornness.

        He could wait this out - or at least he could try.

:: :: ::

        Mila considered, once again, the various benefits of homicide.

        "Yura," she repeated, shifting the phone to her other ear, "Did you, or did you not, ditch movie night to skate in circles?"

        A pause.

        "Shit." If they were face to face, Mila knew that he'd be glaring down at the floor, trying to hide his guilt behind a glower. "How about tonight?"

        "I don't give a fuck about watching the movies," Mila snapped, then winced. That wasn't what she meant to say, but it was too late now.

        "Then it's not a problem, is it?" Yuri growled, his voice rising to a prickly, defensive edge. "Fine. Done. Happy?"

        "Yura, shut up," snarled Mila. "The _problem_ is that you never showed, you didn't answer your phone, and no one knew where you were."

        "You don't have to babysit me!"

        "I was worried about you." She stopped, sighed, letting the huffing exhale crackle across the line. She'd overreacted, but... "We both were. Beka went over to your flat, but you weren't there."

        "Beka?"

        Of course that would get Yuri's attention. "Yeah, you know, the person you'd expect to trek across town at midnight to see if you're still alive?"

        "Okay." He sounded uncertain, caught off guard. "Did he say anything?"

        "No, not really," admitted Mila. "Is he doing better?"

        "I don't know. We haven't talked."

:: :: ::

        "You know I'd never refuse an invitation, Yasha, but I do have a certain sense that this isn't simply for old times' sake."

        "Not exactly, no."

        "Another program for your student? It does seem like he'll be making something of a comeback this season."

        "No. It's regarding a different student."

        "I'm not looking to become a choreographer at large-"

        "I didn't _ask_ you to do that in the first place, if you remember. You made that bargain with Yura on your own."

        "Yes, yes, I remember. Now, if you could elaborate..."

        "I think it might be your sort of problem."

:: :: ::

        "Beka!" Yuri shouted. He slammed his fist into the door, ignoring the bruise already threatening to swell across his knuckles. "Otabek Altin, I am _done_ with your shit, and I swear I will break down your door if you don't fucking talk to me right now."

        Patience hadn't worked. Yuri tried, he really had, but he had limits - and those limits were lightyears behind him now.

        Otabek didn't answer. Yuri ran his fingers over the top of the doorframe once more, searching for the spare key, but it was gone. He took a deep breath.

        "Otabek, I am fifteen seconds away from calling your mother and telling her _everything,"_ growled Yuri. "Because I bet-"

        He reached for the door again and fell forward into empty space. Otabek put out an arm to steady him. Yuri pushed his hand away.

        "You," snarled Yuri, " _Bastard._ You left the rink and didn't even say anything? Were you going to tell me before you up and fucked off back to Almaty, or was that gonna be a surprise too?"

        "I- Yura-" Otabek stuttered, wide-eyed. "I-"

        He didn't look good. Otabek's face was newly gaunt, the sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones ready to cut through his too-pale skin like a blade.

        "Well?"

        "I'm just taking a break," he said, backing away from Yuri. "It's temporary."

        "How long?"

        "I haven't-"

        "Stop fucking lying to me, Beka!" Yuri clenched his fists at his sides. His right fist ached, but he barely noticed - his whole body was wound too tightly, a coiled spring ready to snap. "It's been a _month_ , do you think anyone still believes your bullshit? We all know something's going on, so you can stop telling me it's fine."

        Otabek's breath was coming in quick, short bursts as Yuri took another step forward. He was trembling. Yuri's heart skipped a beat. Nothing made sense, he couldn't have gotten sick so suddenly, there would have been _signs -_ signs that Yuri missed, wrapped up in his own worries and his own stupid feelings, too busy thinking about Otabek to actually look at him-

        "Beka, please," Yuri said. He was ready to beg, pride be damned. "I just-" His voice cracked, cutting him off, and he reached out to grab Otabek's wrist.

        Otabek jerked his hand away. "I can't, Yura, I'm sorry, I need you to-" He tried to take another step back, but the wall was behind him. "Please, I'll explain later, I'm..."

        "No! I'm not going anywhere," Yuri told him. It was easier to say than he'd expected, though hearing it hurt more than he could have anticipated. It was a pain he'd tensed against for weeks, expecting every text and call to be answered with a flat rejection - or never answered at all. "If you're sick, or, fuck, like, if it's drugs or crime movie shit or whatever, I'm not going to let you be an idiot about it by yourself. I don't fucking care, don't tell me to go anywhere."

        "It's not-" Otabek's eyes were glassy and unfocused as he tried to guide Yuri towards the door. His breathing was heavier, faster, almost a pant. "I promise, you just have to-"

        "Go fuck yourself, Altin," Yuri snarled. It was surprisingly difficult to push Otabek aside, like there was more strength hidden there than even his compact, athletic build should be able to hold. "I told you, I'm not-"

        Otabek spun on his heel and ran.

        The bedroom door slammed shut. Yuri stared at it, mouth agape.

        "Beka?" he called softly. "Beka, I'm... fuck, okay, I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me."

        No answer.

        "I just want to know if I can help," Yuri continued, feeling his words melt into the sing-song softness he used to coax Potya out from under the bed. "Beka?"

        There was only silence.

        This, Yuri decided, was ridiculous. He tried the door, half expecting to find it barricaded with furniture, but it opened freely.

        He peered inside. The lights were off, leaving the room illuminated only by what light streamed in from the hall, but Otabek's bedroom seemed no different than it had been the last time he'd seen it, if perhaps slightly messier.

        The only thing out of the ordinary was that there was no trace of Otabek himself.

        Yuri felt along the wall until his fingers found the light switch, which he flipped on. Still no Otabek.

        The shadows at the foot of the bed shifted.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops that was an unplanned three week break ANYWAY I'm baaaaack!   
> Uh content warning for some pretty gnarly body horror, pun absolutely intended.

            Yuri jumped back into the hallway with a yelp and slammed the door. He put a hand to his chest and leaned against the wall, recovering from the near heart attack.

            His breathing under control, he cracked the door open by a few millimeters and peered through.

            A dog. Okay. Otabek had a dog in his bedroom. This explained...

            ... absolutely nothing, he realized a moment later. Yuri pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose and stepped forward. The dog flinched away from him, shoulders hunched, but it didn't make a sound.

            "Sorry, pup," Yuri said, doing his best to sand the edges off of his voice. His breath was quick with anger and hurt, as well as the cold, slimy return of fear. He didn't need to scare the poor dog, though. "I don't suppose _you_ know where Beka is."

            He sure as hell wasn't in here. Yuri peered under the bed, where he found a lone sock but nothing near Mila-level quantities of dust, and then yanked open the closet. He scattered Otabek's clothes in messy heaps across the floor. It wasn't necessary, but none of this should be fucking _necessary,_ so he decided it was fair.

            Had Otabek slipped past him somehow?

            The rest of the flat was empty; the door was still ajar from when Yuri threw it open earlier. Nothing.

            He stepped back into the bedroom. The dog hadn't moved. It watched him soundlessly.

            "If Beka hasn't been taking good care of you I'll kick his ass," Yuri muttered tonelessly. He sank onto the edge of the unmade bed. "Fuck. _Fuck."_

A chilly breeze lifted goosebumps on Yuri's bare forearms. He looked over to the window. The flat was four floors up, but Otabek had scaled buildings for equally ridiculous reasons before.

            He wasn't sprawled on the pavement below. Yuri slipped his phone back into his pocket and forced his other hand to release the window frame, which he'd been gripping hard enough to make the hinges creak.

            There was no sign of him at all. Yuri closed the window.

            This was probably the weirdest day of his life, and that was saying something. It would have been impressive even if it was the weirdest solely with the respect to events including Otabek, but no, it was a strong contender for the overall first place in the “What the Fuck” championship.

            “I guess I’ll check for him outside?” Yuri asked the dog, who responded to him with a low whine. “You can, uh, stay here.”

            If he left the building, he’d get locked out. Yuri doubted that even the most kindly residents would think twice about letting him back in after he’d spent more than a few minutes screaming through their neighbor’s door, and it wasn’t like he could just call Otabek and demand entry. He’d have to slip through behind someone else-

            Or not, because Otabek’s keys were hanging on their hook by the door. Yuri’s scowl deepened. Either Otabek had actually turned invisible, or he’d locked himself out. It would be fine – in fact, for a moment, Yuri considered the merits of securing the front door and forcing Otabek to call him and beg for entry into his own flat – before he remembered that first, Otabek would just pick the lock, and second, someone needed to get in and take care of the Mystery Dog.

            If Otabek came back. Yuri dropped his hand from the doorknob and slumped against the wall. He didn’t have a clue what Otabek would do, not the barest guess about what he was thinking. He tipped his head back to fight away the prickling heat in his eyes.

            It wasn’t like he’d step outside and find Otabek lurking behind some shrubbery or behind a street sign. If he didn’t want Yuri to follow him – which he’d made pretty clear – he’d be impossible to find.

            This was more than Yuri could handle by himself. It wasn’t normal. It was so far outside the realm of normal that he’d have to make a long-distance call back to reality to find someone who knew what they were supposed to do. Otabek’s family? His parents were in Kazakhstan, and Yuri couldn’t ask them to drop everything and fly to Russia without any other information. His own grandfather… no.

            Lilia. He’d take the dog somewhere it could stay for now, leave Otabek a note, and call Lilia.

            Yuri could breathe again. He straightened up. Lilia would know what to do, and Yuri could follow her instructions and then have a nice, private breakdown.

            A soft sound from the bedroom caught Yuri’s attention and his heart leapt.

            _It’s just the dog,_ he told himself as he darted down the hall, _it’s probably just the dog._ But maybe he’d missed Otabek, maybe there was some nook or cranny he hadn’t checked, maybe he’d been too worked up and skipped something obvious. Had he looked behind the door? Under the heap of blankets on the bed?

            “It’s the dog,” Yuri muttered out loud, but he couldn’t shake the hope that he’d pull the door open and find Otabek standing there, calmer and shamefaced, and they’d talk, and Yuri wouldn’t yell, and Otabek wouldn’t run away-

            The hinges squeaked.

            Otabek was there, and he wasn’t. Yuri took one step back and then another. The inside of his body had turned from flesh and bone and blood to the cold emptiness of space, which had sucked away all his newly caught breath, his nascent hope that everything would be fine.

            Otabek was there, but his arms and legs were twisted, were _twisting_ underneath coarse black fur and his hands – Yuri jerked his gaze away as the shock ran down his own spine, but not before he saw the dull claws where there should have been fingers.

            Yuri could close his eyes, but hearing it was worse. He was no stranger to injuries, not to the crunch of his own ankle after a bad landing, not to falls where the crack of impact was audible from meters away. This was all of that: it was every broken bone, every sprain, every bruise and concussion and torn ligament, and it was more. The sound almost drowned out Otabek’s quiet, pained whimper.

            Yuri rushed forward, dizzy with the horror of it, and dropped to his knees by Otabek’s side. He reached out but his arm froze of its own accord, unable to make contact with Otabek, whose skin at least was human once more, smooth and golden-tan beneath a sheen of sweat and his waxy pallor, but flesh rippled and shifted underneath. Yuri bit his lip until he tasted blood, trying to force back the rising wave of nausea.

            For the briefest of moments, Yuri thought about dialing for an ambulance. A hysterical giggle bubbled in his throat, but Otabek made another soft sound that wiped everything else from Yuri’s mind.

            “Beka,” he whispered, unsure of whether Otabek could hear him or if he was even aware that Yuri was there. “Beka, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay.” Yuri wondered if he was lying. He hoped not. He thought he was. Otabek turned towards his voice, eyes unfocused, their deep, warm brown streaked with yellow. He was almost human now. “You’re going to be fine or I’ll make you fucking regret it,” Yuri continued desperately, and this time when he moved his hand he stroked Otabek’s shoulder, his touch featherlight for fear of hurting him.

            Otabek shuddered. He was half-sitting, half sprawled, propped against the base of the bed. He wasn’t moving anymore, except for the quick, shallow rise and fall of his chest.

            Yuri’s own pulse quickened as he pored over Otabek, searching for any differences, anything he could do, and contemplated calling the hospital once more. Otabek looked half-alive, and even that was generous.

            “I’m sorry,” mumbled Otabek, slurring slightly. “I’m so sorry, Yura, I’m-“

            “Beka, fuck.” Yuri gulped back the tears that were on the brink of bursting forth. He’d never cried in a nightmare before, but dreams never came true the way one expected they would. “Are you okay? Does- does anything hurt?”

            “I’m sorry.” Otabek gasped a deep, airless sob, his head bowed limply to the floorboards. His face was turned from Yuri as if he was trying to hide. “I needed you to leave before it. Before. Before I.”

            "What the fuck just happened?”

            “I don’t-“ Otabek hunched forward. He leaned away from Yuri. “I don’t know.”

            Yuri gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to let Otabek go anywhere, not now, not again. He curled his fist around the sweat-damp sleeve of Otabek’s shirt.

            “Beka-“

            Otabek looked up, and it hit Yuri harder than any fall he’d ever taken. His face was even more drawn and gaunt, the shadows deeper and more severe, but worse than that was the way it was filled with fear. Yuri had seen Otabek anxious, had seen bad days and panic attacks, but he’d never seen him afraid. The fear was held by a framework of exhaustion, well-worn and close-fitting, and Yuri realized that it had been lurking below the surface for weeks. There was something new, though: Otabek was staring at him with resignation, as if he’d just signed his own death warrant.

            “Don’t tell anyone,” Otabek whispered. “Please.”

            Yuri nodded.

            Otabek closed his eyes and let out a long, hiccuping exhale. When he opened them again, he frowned in distant bewilderment, like he didn’t expect to see Yuri still there.

            He believed that Yuri would leave.  

            “You fucking idiot,” Yuri muttered, wrapping his arms around Otabek’s too-warm body. He was shaking. Yuri was too. “Beka, you absolute moron.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's up it's five am, i refuse to regret my life choices because that's a problem for future me, and in true Heart tradition this lil fucker is gonna be a lot longer than I planned. Here's the conclusion of the first act of three that I have outlined so uh HEY anyway goodnight.

         As a child, Otabek dreamed about falling. He’d jerk awake and take in the shadowy shapes of the room around him – the corner of a dresser outlined by the glow of city lights outside his parents’ apartment in Almaty, the fluorescent glow that seeped under his door in two, three, four dorms across continents and countries – but for a few half-awake minutes he’d still feel himself tumbling down and down and down.

 _Nightmares don’t always end when you wake up,_ his older sister told him once, blinking blearily through crumbs of leftover eyeliner. He’d stared up at Aisulu, four years his senior and with no patience for her baby brother’s bad dreams, and he started to giggle.

The dreams stopped eventually, somewhere between Montreal and his return to Almaty. Otabek forgot what it was like to feel his mattress tip and plummet under his spine, and he forgot his sister’s melodramatic proclamation, but he didn’t forget watching the dark outline of his own hands in front of his face as he waited for the shadows to settle.

The cold metal bedframe dug into his ribs. Yuri gripped Otabek’s upper arm, his body so close that every breath pressed into Otabek’s chest.

Otabek couldn’t move. He stared at his hand, flat against the floor like he’d been scrabbling for purchase. It didn’t feel like his. The wood was warm under his fingers. How long had it been? He watched, waiting for the bones of his wrist to crunch and contort, melting into a form whose memory rested just beneath his skin.

He waited to wake up.

He waited for Yuri to jerk away, his face twisted with fear and disgust as he scrambled for the door. He wouldn’t hold on. Otabek’s arms were heavy at his sides, too heavy to lift.

He waited, his head bowed into the bony points of Yuri’s shoulder, because sometimes nightmares didn’t end when you woke up. Sometimes they got worse.

Yuri shifted.

“My foot’s numb,” he said, wincing as he straightened his leg. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere.”

Otabek exhaled. The edges of his body were more solid now, further from transforming into something that was him-but-not. The only evidence of whatever had happened was a sharp ache deep inside his limbs, as bright as the pain of a chipped tooth.

“That was real.”

Yuri huffed out a breathless, startled laugh. “Pretty fuckin’,” he agreed. “Why were you a dog?”

“I didn’t think I was,” Otabek replied. It was hard to pick the words out of the air. His mind was sluggish, thoughts slippery. “I was?”

He nodded slowly. “Uh. Yeah. Did you… notice?”

Fragmented memories whirled; dreams that weren’t dreams but couldn’t have been anything else splintered and reformed. Otabek saw his hands, the thin white scar across his knuckles, the hangnail where he’d bitten the edge of his thumbnail past the quick. He saw his hands, clawed and furred.

Yuri’s face blurred before his eyes. The taste of drowsiness was heavy on his tongue.

This couldn’t last; it wasn’t how the story went, but he didn’t have to wake up immediately. He could wait to let the nightmare get worse. It might soften the blow, Otabek decided, if Yuri’s withdrawal was wrapped in the hazy recollection of dreams – if Otabek could pretend he hadn’t been there at all.

“Beka?” echoed Yuri’s voice, filtering down to him from a distance. “Are you- Beka?”

“It’s okay,” Otabek mumbled. He hoped he was speaking aloud. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if it mattered. “You can go.”

Yuri spoke, but Otabek lost his meaning in the fog.

“Sleeping,” Otabek explained, struggling to pull that single word from his lips. “It’s okay.”

“Not on the floor you’re not.” It was punctuated by a grunt of effort as he was half helped, half lifted upright before being allowed to sink into the cloudy softness of his bed.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he pleaded once more. “I’m sorry.”

“I won’t.”

The mattress shifted under his head and he heard the scrape of worn denim against cotton sheets as Yuri’s warm weight settled beside him, sitting with his legs crossed. Yuri blinked down at him. His face was sad. He wasn’t supposed to be sad, Otabek thought with a pang of guilt. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

“I told you I’m not leaving,” Yuri said. “I promise.”

Maybe it was okay to hold on. Otabek let his fingers curl into the hem of Yuri’s t-shirt, anchoring him as he floated away.

:: :: ::

Yuri did not break promises. Some debts were impossible to repay.

The moment Otabek fell asleep, however, Yuri turned to face the worst case scenario. He’d given up trying to predict what might happen next – if Otabek might wake up and everything would be back to normal, or if the steady rise and fall of his breath would fade into stillness while Yuri stood by helplessly.

He’d sworn not to tell anyone, but Yuri would rather lose Otabek than let Otabek be lost.

Yuri’s hand rested on Otabek’s wrist. His pulse was strong. It, at least, seemed sure of itself. Yuri counted the beats. If his focus waned, something else would go wrong. The idea was nonsensical, but it was borne by the currents of panic that threatened to drag him under, and so Yuri counted. 

Otabek slept, and Yuri thought. He didn’t bother looking for a sensible explanation. Things either were or they weren’t, and nothing he believed could change that, so he didn’t spend time on belief.

Illness. Avoidance. A month – had it only been a month? – of oddities and obfuscation. Otabek’s transformation. Nausea welled in Yuri’s throat and he pushed the images away. A month. What had changed? What had _happened?_ He thought back further. A cold, one he knew wasn’t feigned. Four Continents, a scattered handful of handful of competitions too numerous to remember individually, his own birthday. Yuri cursed his own perspective, the way it was littered with himself to the exclusion of what felt like everything else. His growth spurts, his frustration, his losses. Mila had thrown parties. He thought of Valentine’s Day, of the ache in his shins and the way Otabek’s breath bloomed into white mist as they slipped out of Mila’s flat. The emergency room’s harsh fluorescent light, washing out the nurse’s dispassionate face as she cleaned the smears of blood from the bite on Otabek’s arm.

The dog bite. Yuri frowned.

:: :: :: 

Waking up was tinged with nostalgia. He’d spent enough time imagining what it would feel like to open his eyes and see Yuri sprawled out beside him that the scene was almost familiar.

Yuri sat up quickly enough to shake the bedframe and rubbed his palms over the knees of his jeans. His green eyes shone bright through swollen lids, vibrant against the splotchy pink of his face.

“Hey,” Yuri said hoarsely. “How do you feel?”

Otabek snorted; it was closer to laughing than he’d come in what felt like years. The side of Yuri’s mouth quirked into a broken half-smile.

“Stupid fucking question,” Yuri mumbled as Otabek pushed himself up. “What was I expecting, _yeah, I’m great, I’m a werewolf but it’s fine_ , great fucking question-“

“Better,” Otabek said quietly. The horror of what happened was still there, but it felt empty and carved out instead of swollen with infection. He replayed the rest of Yuri’s words in his mind. They made no more sense the second time, so he moved on. “Yura, I’m so sorry.”

Yuri looked away. “Don’t start that shit again.”

“I lied to you,” Otabek continued hollowly.

“Yeah, figured that out, thanks.”

“I didn’t want you to get dragged into this.” _Into this_ , like he knew was ‘this’ was.

Yuri’s hands shook. His posture was so taut with tension that Otabek’s own spine ached in sympathy. “You thought I’d freak out and ditch you.”

“I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t-“

“Then _maybe_ you should let me help!” snarled Yuri. “What the fuck was your plan, to run away and ghost everyone and just fucking disappear? Perfect, Altin. Great strategy.”

Otabek didn’t breathe in to steady himself; the air itself would choke him. “It’s not safe for you to be here.” Yuri’s eyes flared as he opened his mouth to cut in, but Otabek forced himself to keep speaking before he could interrupt. “Something happened to me, I don’t know what it was, I can’t let you- I won’t- please, Yura, if I spread this to you or-“

His throat closed. The anger had drained from Yuri’s expression, gone from a flash flood to a sudden drought, and he reached out.

Otabek jerked back. If this was contagious, whatever it was, it was already too late. Yuri had been here for - minutes? hours? – but he couldn’t take the chance. Panic welled up once more.

“Hey, Beka, hey,” Yuri said. It was the same voice he used to coax Potya out from under the sofa. He twisted his hands together, his knuckles white, but he didn’t move towards Otabek. “I think- I think I know what’s happening?”

Otabek blinked at him.

Yuri giggled with a note of hysteria. “You. Uh. You got bitten. On a full moon. And I just saw you turn into a wolf. Well. You were a wolf and then you turned back but I guess you had to turn into one first and I just didn’t see that part and-“ He paused and met Otabek’s gaze. “I think you’re a fucking werewolf now?”

Otabek blinked again. “Werewolves aren’t real,” he heard himself say.  

Yuri stared at him, nonplussed.

“I was a wolf?” He’d asked that before, on the verge of unconsciousness. “I turned into a wolf.”

“Hell of a thing to miss, Beka,” Yuri replied. “You didn’t-“

A month of secrets; a month of silence.

“I knew something was happening.” The words spilled from his lips. He couldn’t have stopped them. “I couldn’t remember- there were gaps missing, and I thought they were dreams, or I was hallucinating, but I couldn’t tell anyone because… I went to the doctor at first, I wasn’t lying, and the nurse tried to draw blood but it got stuck in my arm. She took it out and I felt it tear but there was nothing there. Whenever I get hurt it heals, it’s just… gone.” His pulse was fast enough to make him dizzy. Yuri gaped. “I can hear everything, I can hear people talking on the street right now. I can hear your heartbeat, I’ve had a fever since it started and I don’t feel cold anymore. I woke up in the middle of the woods and I couldn’t remember how I got there.”

He flinched away from Yuri’s hand again.

“Look, just don’t bite me and it’ll be fine,” Yuri said dazedly. “So you have… superpowers now?”

“I told Yakov I needed to take a leave of absence.” He couldn’t go back to the rink. “He wasn’t happy. I wouldn’t tell him anything. He let me sign the forms, though. He handed me his pen.”

“The fancy one?”

Otabek nodded. “It burned my hand. I touched it and- it felt like my skin was burning.”

“It’s silver,” Yuri said quietly. “Werewolf. Silver. Did he see?”

“Yeah.” Yuri was sitting next to him now, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. _Just don’t bite me._ He should be careful anyway. Otabek let himself be selfish instead. He leaned into Yuri. “He… he looked at me. He didn’t say anything. He just gave me a different pen.”

“Huh,” Yuri replied. Otabek watched him think. “Maybe we should-“

“No,” Otabek said forcefully. “Please, Yura, don’t.”

“Why not?” Yuri set his teeth mulishly.

“Because people who know what I am hate me.” Otabek let the words out in a rush. That was the worst part. He’d tried to find help. There was a world he hadn’t noticed before, that he hadn’t known to look for. It smelled of dust and ozone and electricity and he’d followed it, hoping for answers. He hadn’t been welcomed. “This isn’t… it isn’t just me.”

“Okay, so magic is real and secretly all around us?” Yuri laughed again. He didn’t look amused. “Okay. Fuck.” He caught Otabek’s look and raised an eyebrow. “Beka, I have actually seen a movie before, and this isn’t the weirdest thing you’ve done today. So. Magic people.”

“They’re… afraid of me,” Otabek admitted. “I tried to find them, to see if- it didn’t go well.”

He didn’t heal quickly enough to avoid scars. Otabek wondered if they’d fade in time.

“We can’t tell Yakov,” he continued quietly. “Promise me you won’t tell _anyone_.”

Yuri sighed. His whole body was trembling where he was pressed into Otabek’s side. “I promise.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, Yura,” Otabek whispered.

“I get it.” Yuri dragged a hand through his hair and Otabek winced as he heard strands snap as he yanked at filamentous knots. “Beka, we’ll figure this out.”

 _I love you,_ Otabek thought.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for mild, mostly-unintentional self injury in the third section.

            “You’re bringing in a new choreographer,” echoed Yuri. He scowled across Yakov’s desk. “In April. To watch me fall over for a month?”

            It was presented as an opportunity, but it felt more like a condemnation. Yuri bit back his next question: had Lilia given up on him? Last season had been a disaster, and they were all on tenterhooks waiting to see if his mediocre results were a phoenix’s ashes or merely a clumsy, tumbling fall from grace.

            Yakov’s silver pen rested in its stand. It wasn’t the sort of thing Yuri could imagine Yakov, who put the entirety of his art onto the ice, buying for himself. He wondered where it had come from, and what quality allowed it to remain in its place of honor.

            “This gives you more time to get comfortable with the routine,” Yakov said. “Yura, we’ve been discussing next season for months. Now isn’t the time to get lazy. You know as well as anyone else that you can’t get by on talent alone.”

            The lecture was familiar, but the tone of Yakov’s voice wasn’t. He wasn’t a man who _talked -_ he boomed. Occasionally, he bellowed. Usually, he simply shouted. Yuri could tell that his heart wasn’t in it this time.

            His wasn’t either, but it pissed him off.

            “Okay,” Yuri said. “I just don’t-“

            “Yuri Plisetsky,” Lilia cut in. He winced. He hadn’t forgotten that she was seated beside the desk – that wasn’t the sort of thing one could forget – but her strikes didn’t need the element of surprise to land with all the impact of a slap. “I can assure you that you are not the first skater to go through puberty. Frustrating as they may be, your experiences are not unique.”

            Yuri shut up and nodded. He wondered what would have happened if he had called Lilia while he was looking for Otabek, if she’d have taken one look at him, lifted a thin eyebrow, and ordered everything back to normal. 

            She clicked her tongue. “Yuri. My time is too valuable for you to waste it daydreaming.”

            “Sorry, Madame Lilia.”

            “You’ve worked with this choreographer before.” Yakov shuffled a stack of papers on his desk. “Your senior debut. He offered to create a free skate and teach you about program development, since you’ve shown some interest in choreography recently. You’ll have evening lessons again.”

            “You will be released from morning practice sessions for the duration,” Lilia informed him. “Two afternoons a week will be spent in my studio. This is not permission to slack off. Understood?”

            “Yes, Madame Lilia.” A quiet thrill hummed through his veins, crackling like thunder almost too distant to hear. It was what he’d been waiting for, anticipating with all the fervor of a caterpillar that dreamed of flight.

            But that excitement belonged to a previous incarnation of Yuri Plisetsky, one whose best friend hadn’t transformed in impossible ways before his eyes, under his hands. Yuri’s life wasn’t supposed to continue as normal, like the weight of that secret wasn’t warping every corner of his thoughts.

            “Yuri,” Lilia snapped, and heat flooded his cheeks. “You will come to my studio after your conversation here is finished, _if_ you can pay attention.”

            “Yes, Madame Lilia.” His voice was thick and sticky with angry shame. He blinked quickly, willing away the frustrated tears that suddenly threatened to fall. 

            She stood up and walked out, shutting the office door with a sharp _click._

            Yakov cleared his throat.

            Yuri sat back and waited for the inevitable lecture. Yakov was always more subdued when Lilia was around. Now the yelling could start. He certainly deserved it.

            Yakov coughed his grumbly old-man cough again.

            “Yura,” he began, then stopped. He seemed… uncertain. It was disconcerting. “Have you talked to Otabek?”

            “… Yeah,” Yuri said carefully. He’d promised not to tell anyone. His gaze traced the lines of Yakov’s weathered face as he wondered how much of the secret was already laid bare. Otabek thought he’d guessed something already, but Yuri couldn’t fathom building a bridge between the two worlds whose borders he found himself upon. “Yeah. I- we’ve talked.”

            “If he-“ Yakov sighed again, long and heavy. “I’ve told you not to bring your personal lives to the rink, but if there’s any way I can help… just let him know I’ll do what I can.”

            The tears were back. Yuri bit the inside of his cheek until he could speak without his voice cracking and spilling every thought and fear and broken promise over the oak desk.

            “I’ll tell him,” Yuri choked out. “I- thanks.”

            Yakov grimaced. Yuri thought it might have been a smile, but no self-respecting smile belonged in the room right now. “Move along. Lilia’s waiting.”

            Yuri’s gaze flicked back to the pen as he started to leave.

            “Hey, where’s that from?”

            “That?” Yakov grunted dismissively, but his eyes were fond. “It was a gift. A wedding present.”

:: :: ::

  
            Viktor tugged the sleeves of his peacoat into unwrinkled order as he stepped out of the rental car and surveyed the concrete panels of the apartment complex. It would do, he decided.

            Spring nights in St. Petersburg were shorter than he liked, but it was early in both the year and the evening. Viktor took the keys from his pocket, made sure that the parking permit was clearly visible in the windshield – there was no sense in drawing attention – and let himself in.

             The building wasn’t particularly old, but it felt that way. Viktor paused as he climbed the stairs past the third floor. The Khrushchyovka design might have been his childhood home, lifted from the Sverdlovsk of sixty years before and transplanted into St. Petersburg. He could step into the hallway, make his way across the scuffed tiled floors that no amount of scrubbing could polish to a clean shine, and knock on the door.

            A complete stranger would answer. Viktor smiled to himself and continued up the stairwell.

            His key turned smoothly in the lock. For all its superficial shabbiness, the building was well-maintained, its rusty hinges gilded with gold as the wheels of gentrification turned. It wouldn’t survive much longer before it was torn down to make way for something newer, sleeker, and more expensive.

            The door cracked open and swung away from his hand, which hovered over the threshold.

            “This is home for a while,” he murmured. “Better get used to it.”

            Viktor walked inside.

            He spent an hour checking the heavy interior shutters for cracks. His contact had been thorough when she prepared the flat; he would have to thank her for her careful attention.

            It was early yet, and twenty hours in the back of a windowless van had left Viktor restless with the high-strung energy of containment. It was time to get started.

            “Yasha,” he chirped, and held the phone away from his ear as he waited for the shouted reply. “Catch me up. Where are you?”

            He always did enjoy a puzzle, even – or maybe especially, whatever that said about him – when the pieces were people. Viktor wondered what the boy was like, who it was that lived behind the impenetrable expression. Otabek certainly skated as if his movements were the only language with which he could speak.

            He’d try to catch a glimpse of what he had to work with after speaking to Yakov. It sounded like the boy might bolt the moment he got too close. This puzzle wasn’t simply a game.

            And at some point, Viktor supposed, he should start on Yuri’s program.

:: :: ::

        “Do you want to text Mila?” Yuri asked without prelude. “She…” He paused. “She could grab food so we don’t have to move.”

        Otabek looked away before he answered. Even now, even to Yuri, he wasn’t sure what to say. The handful of times he’d seen Mila after everything had changed, the rainy, electric scent of what he assumed was magic had clung to her hair and clothes like perfume. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d take one look at him and _know._ She’d drag Yuri away and he wouldn’t blame her.

        He opened his mouth, closed it again, and shrugged.

        Yuri sighed. “Can I at least tell her you’re not actively dying?”

        “Sure,” Otabek replied. He leaned forward to adjust the laptop screen, feigning interest in the movie they’d been ignoring for several minutes, so Yuri wouldn’t see the bitterness twisting his face. _Not actively dying._ As far as he knew. It was the best anyone could say about what was left of his life. “Go ahead.”

        His breath caught. Yuri’s hand gripped his upper arm, but he hadn’t felt the touch.

        “Yeah, tell her I’m fine.” Otabek leaned back, wishing he could disappear into the couch cushions. His skin flushed with heat as the air pressed too tightly around him. “I- I can text her.”

        What was another lie? He’d already lied to Yakov, to his family, to Yuri, to himself. Otabek thought that the only thing left of himself was lies. He couldn’t even say what he was trying to protect anymore. Everything else had been stripped away. He couldn’t-

        “Beka,” Yuri said, and then more loudly: “ _Beka._ Stop it.”

        “I’m not doing anything.”

        “Don’t fucking-“

        “Call Mila and tell her I’m just great,” interrupted Otabek. His fingernails bit into his skin as his hands clenched his forearms, but what did it matter if they broke through? It would heal in an instant. “I’ll never skate again, because right, I’m not actually human these days which means that everyone either hates me or is afraid of me or both, but tell her everything is great.”

        “Stop it,” Yuri repeated. He pried Otabek’s fingers from his wrist, revealing bloody crescents smeared across Otabek’s skin. They stung for a moment before the marks faded. “Don’t do that, dumbass.”

        “It doesn’t matter.” Otabek stood up to wash his hands. “It’s already healed.”

        “So?” Yuri asked, following him to the sink. His face was a shade paler than normal, and his gaze flicked down to Otabek’s wrist and back up, remembering what a freak of nature Otabek had become.

        “So what? It doesn’t matter. It’s gone.”  

        “I don’t fucking care that it’s gone, I care that it happened,” Yuri snapped. “Just because it was temporary didn’t make it okay.”

        “It was just a scratch,” Otabek said. He wished he could leave the tap running so that Yuri wouldn’t hear the panicked flutter of his heart, but no, Yuri couldn’t hear heartbeats across a room. That was just him. His vision blurred. He turned off the water. “It was an accident. I wasn’t paying attention.”

        He should dry his hands, but instead, Otabek found himself leaning over the sink. His face was wet. He should dry that too. He couldn’t move.

         “I didn’t mean to,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Yura. It was stupid. I won’t-“

        “Beka,” Yuri said, and Otabek was pathetically grateful to hear his name fall from Yuri’s lips, for the implicit promise that he still existed, that he was still himself. “ _Stop._ ”

        Otabek stopped.

        “You can’t keep doing this,” Yuri told him. “I know you’re angry, I know this fucking sucks, but I’ve been angry my whole damn life and yeah, I’m the last fucking person anyone is gonna ask about anger management, but you’re not going to anyone else for advice so you’re stuck with me.”

        “I’m not-“ Otabek took a breath. “I’m scared, okay? I’m sorry. I took it out on you.”

        “Scared, pissed, whatever.” Yuri shook his head. “What’s the fucking difference? It’s not like this is fair. It’s bullshit.”

        “I…” Otabek frowned. He thought about a cornered cat, hissing and scratching. What _was_ the difference? He steadied himself against the counter. “Yeah.”

        “Mila yelled at me the other week,” Yuri said. He grimaced down at the floor. “About when you went looking for me because I ditched movie night and no one knew where I was.”  
            “I remember.”

        “I scared the shit out of her,” he continued softly. “And you. Because I was worried about you. I thought you- sometimes I thought you’d realized you hated me, even though that didn’t make any sense, but I thought- you said you were sick and you looked sick. I thought you were just lying about what was wrong. I thought-“ Yuri laughed, but Otabek heard it catch in his throat. “I thought you had fucking cancer or something and you were actually dying, and you weren’t telling me because they couldn’t do anything, or- anyway. Something like that.”

        Guilt tasted like drowning, Otabek decided. Yuri rolled his eyes.

        “I said _stop,_ holy shit. It was fucked up, okay?” He ran his fingers through his hair as if he could pull the words he needed from the locks, but only came away with a halo of frizz. Otabek stuck his still-wet hands into his pockets to keep from reaching out to smooth the pale strands back into place, but what was the point? He reached out. Yuri’s hair was soft. It stuck to his damp skin. Yuri smiled at him. “Thanks. Anyway. Shit. I think Mila’s less fucked up than we are, but she’s still worried about you. You don’t have to tell her anything, but yeah, let her know you’re _not actually dying._ ”

        Otabek let out a shaky exhale. “Right.”

        “And I need…” Shame flashed across Yuri’s face, but only for an instant. “I need to talk to her too, okay? Or someone. So Mila. Or like… Yakov, I guess? Maybe Lilia? Besides you guys I don’t exactly have friends,” he said, shrugging dismissively. “But my- my best friend kind of turned into a werewolf and I won’t tell anyone but I can’t… it can’t just be me, okay?”

        It wasn’t just him. It was never just him. Otabek’s chest loosened enough to let him reply, “Yes. Thanks, Yura.”

        Yuri looked at him. It was private, calculating, but it didn’t make Otabek feel alone. “I’ve never told you about my mom.”

        It wasn’t a question. Otabek shook his head. Yuri frowned.

        “Maybe later,” he decided. “Beka. Let’s go to the rink.”

        “Now?”

        “No one’s there,” Yuri said. “Why not? The movie sucks anyway.”

        “I-“ Otabek thought about the ice, and a thrill pulsed through his veins. He was stronger now. He was faster. He could take risks he’d never taken before, because the consequences would be a matter of minutes instead of a lifelong weight. “Let’s go.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the very tentative estimate of a chapter number - this is what my outline has, so it should be somewhere around here.

            The smell of the rink hit Otabek as Yuri held the door open for him. He found himself hovering on the threshold, waiting for an invitation, as if he was standing outside an estranged lover’s apartment or returning to a family he’d walked out on.

            “If it’s open too long the alarm’s gonna go off,” Yuri said after a few moments. He eyed the keypad set into the wall and let the silence speak. They could leave. They could come back tomorrow, next week, never.

            The rush of their breath echoed down the hallway. Otabek wonders how much of Yuri’s love for his nighttime practices stemmed from the clandestine air lent by the deserted, darkened building – even with permission, it carried with it the electric thrill of disobedience.

            “I used to freeze up every time I went to a competition,” Otabek murmured, keeping his voice low, despite the lack of any need to do so. “Practice too, sometimes. I’d stand outside the building and think about how I could just… leave. Go home. Go to a normal school, get a normal job, and that would be it.”

            “Huh.” Yuri tilted his head like a curious cat. He looked like he was struggling to wrap his head around an alien concept. “Did you want to?”

            He didn’t bother to keep quiet; his voice rang out, loud as the first notes of an anthem. Yuri didn’t make himself small for anyone.

            “No.” Otabek laughed softly. “That scared me more than the competition, so I always went in.”

            Yuri didn’t reply. He’d accepted everything else with a speed that made Otabek dizzy. He’d been the one to put a name to it: _werewolf._ Yuri believed with the same unyielding, uncompromising stubbornness he wore like a second skin, but he wouldn’t admit that Otabek’s career was finished.

            Otabek wished he would. It would be easier, somehow, made bearable by Yuri’s acknowledgement, but it wasn’t a battle he was willing to fight. He glanced back at Yuri and thought there was already a war there. It had been raging for years already.

            He changed the subject before the silence could smother them. Their friendship was built on the comfortable quiet of understanding, but this one was alive, and it was hungry.

            “Does it smell weird to you?” It was impossible to tell what was normal and what he only noticed due to the change in his senses. Scents weren’t _stronger,_ exactly, any more than he imagined colors would be brighter if his eyes could pick up more of them. They were simply… more present. Some were familiar enough to separate and name: stale sweat, bleach, the thick oil for the Zamboni, and an acrid odor Otabek associated with the ice itself. Everything else faded into an incomprehensible miasma, as endlessly distracting as a conversation in a language he’d learned as a child and forgotten over time. A discomfiting metallic tang hung over the entire mess. Otabek frowned.

            Yuri sniffed. “Nah, just sweaty. Why?”

            “There’s… something.” Otabek drew another breath. It left him reeling as he tried to sort it into some sort of order. “It was outside my flat this morning too. It’s-“ He paused, unsure of how to explain the feeling that had settled in his gut. It was the sensation of taking turns on slippery roads, of peering over the edge of a cliff – there wasn’t the immediate presence of danger, but the knowledge that he should be very, _very_ careful. He shook his head. “It’s probably nothing.”

            Yuri looked at Otabek and nodded, not dismissing his statement, but filing it away.

            Then they were through the hall and into the rink proper. The sight of the ice chased away Otabek’s dread – this hadn’t been taken from him, no matter what else had. He’d skated to win, they all did, but that was something they learned. It burned the brightest, but the heart of it would always be the need to fly.

            “Someone smoothed it out this evening,” Otabek commented, surveying the fresh ice. There were grooves from one pair of skates, maybe two, but it was more or less unmarked. He forced himself to lace his skates slowly, carefully, resisting the rink’s magnetic tug.

            “The choreographer, probably.” Yuri wrinkled his nose. “He has some important job during the day so I’m back to night lessons for the next month.”

            “You’ve worked with him before, right?” Otabek watched Yuri glide onto the ice and wondered whether he’d learned to walk before or after he could skate.

            “Yep. Senior debut short program,” Yuri said, rolling his eyes. “I hated that one. Until Barcelona, at least. Then it was better.”

            Otabek remembered it too. Pure and innocent – Yuri’s complaints were familiar. _It’s supposed to_ surprise _people,_ he’d snarled on more than one occasion. _I’ve been skating that sweet crap my whole fucking life, those shitheads call me a fairy every single interview, exactly who the fuck is this supposed to surprise?_

            He smirked. “It was good, though.”

            “It was,” admitted Yuri. “Murder to skate, but it was good.”

            Yuri’s eyes glinted as Otabek finally stepped onto the ice, reflecting the almost-painful current that ran through him and raised the hair on his arms.

            “How much do you think you can do?” he asked.

            “I have no idea,” Otabek said honestly. He moved into warm-ups, but his muscles were already filled with a loose, liquid heat. He glanced up as a blur of motion caught his gaze, followed by the _clack_ of Yuri’s skates. “Yakov-“

            “That’s only if there’s no one to call an ambulance if I fuck up,” Yuri called back. He spun around with a spray of ice chips, a contemplative scowl creasing his forehead. “Hey, Beka?”

            “Yeah?” Nearly two months since he’d skated, thought Otabek. How much had his body forgotten already?

            “Exactly how well do you heal now?”

            Envy pulled the edges of Yuri’s voice taut – as they both stilled, Otabek heard the beat of his heart pick up, belying the casual words. They all understood why Icarus had flown so high. They pushed themselves upwards, reaching for the sun, dreading the fall.

            Except Otabek… Otabek’s wings were stronger, and he no longer had to fear the churning sea.

            “I’m going to take it slow,” he replied carefully. “Yakov will be angry if someone bleeds on the ice.”

            Yuri nodded wordlessly.  

:: :: ::

            Viktor was proud of the flaws in his rendition of Yuri’s program. Triples and quads were changed to singles with the occasional double thrown in, he stumbled twice in the step sequence, and as a final touch, let his hand brush the ice after a Salchow. It was quite a good performance, he thought, smirking at Yuri’s soft snort of disdain. No one would guess he’d skated it perfectly the night before. No one could guess that he’d spent hours watching and rewatching clips of Yuri’s skating, trying to remember what was still beyond human limitations.

            He’d always been a good actor.

            “Something like that,” he chirped, heaving a couple of deep, unnecessary breaths. “Think you can handle it?”

            “Yeah, whatever,” Yuri said, shrugging, but his eyes were wide and Viktor could see the calculations behind them. “How does Yakov like the music?”

            “Oh, I haven’t told him yet,” replied Viktor. He smiled, careful to keep his teeth hidden. _That_ would be an interesting conversation. He looked forward to it. Classic metal wasn’t exactly Yakov’s style. “You know the piece already?”

            “Like everyone else in the whole damn country,” Yuri retorted, rolling his eyes, and then paused. In a softer voice, he continued, “It’s one of my grandpa’s favorites. He loves Aria.”

            It was the first gap in Yuri’s prickly armor. Viktor kept his expression blandly pleasant – anything more, and Yuri would think he was being teased and retreat again.

            “I’m not completely satisfied with this mix,” Viktor said, sighing. “The length is right, but…”

            There was a flicker of interest as Yuri took the bait. “I could-“

            He stopped. Viktor pushed a little more.

            “There’s another skater here who does all his own mixing, yes?” Viktor put a finger to his chin and tipped his head, the picture of a man deep in thought. “Mr. Altin, I believe. His programs are quite impressive. Perhaps he’ll be able to help us.”

            Yuri’s expression hardened, confirming what Viktor had already guessed. Yuri’s clothes were heavy with the same unfamiliar scent he’d noted around Otabek’s building, and Yakov had said they were friends. Yasha had been right about more than just that.

            “Beka’s not at the rink right now,” Yuri muttered, glaring down at the ice.

            Viktor frowned: a little concern, a little disappointment, but no hint of giving up. “Yakov did mention something,” he said. “I hope he’s well?”

            “He’ll be fine.” Viktor didn’t have to hear the quickening of Yuri’s pulse or the crack in his voice to recognize that lie.

            “I’d still like to ask if he’d be interested,” Viktor stated. He didn’t leave room for Yuri to disagree. “I will be teaching you something about creating your own choreography, yes? If you have no objections, he’s welcome to join us – from off the ice, if necessary.”

            He’d laid it on a bit heavy there, but another spark of interest lit up Yuri’s face. He wasn’t happy with Otabek’s absence, Viktor thought, and he didn’t expect that Otabek was either. Skating wasn’t something you could walk away from once the cold had sunk into your bones.

            “I can ask him,” replied Yuri with just a hint of reluctance.

            Viktor waved a hand. Yuri blinked.

            “Now?” asked Yuri. He was already reaching for where his phone lay on the wall around the rink.

            “No reason to wait,” confirmed Viktor. “Please, go ahead.”

            Yuri grinned. “Yakov hates phones. He’d ban them from the whole country if he could.”

            “Yakov believes that calling is unnecessary if one can shout loudly enough,” Viktor agreed. “As long as you aren’t distracted during lessons, I have no problems with it.”

            “Cool. Huh.” Yuri tapped at his phone and looked up. “Beka says maybe.”

            “Wonderful.” Viktor smiled to himself. He’d been wondering how to get a look at Otabek without cornering him in the street, but it looked like that wasn’t going to be an issue after all. “Bring him with you tomorrow night. I want him to see the routine before he starts thinking about what to do with the song – we’ll rechoreograph sections as needed.” He waited for Yuri to finish relaying his words over text message before continuing, “Now. I’ll show you the program one more time, and then it’s your turn.”

:: :: ::

            “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Yuri said. He meant it, but at the same time, he _needed_ that music. If Otabek couldn’t be on the ice with him, fighting for the podium, Yuri had to have this.

            Otabek lifted an eyebrow.

            “I really, really want you to, but you don’t have to,” Yuri added. “Hand me the paprika. Not the pepper, you ass, the paprika.”

            “It needs pepper.” Otabek peered around Yuri’s shoulder to inspect the soup. “And more salt.”

            “I put in salt already.” Yuri shivered as Otabek brushed his arm, leaning forward for a taste. _Wait,_ he’d told himself, even before he was sure what they were waiting for. _Wait._ He’d know when the time was right, and it would just… happen. “I’m not adding pepper.”

            Otabek’s hand twitched and Yuri watched the dark specks tumble into the pot.

            “You’ll thank me later!” Otabek darted backwards to avoid Yuri’s assault with the wooden spoon. “Yura, not in my hair,” he whined.

            Yuri smacked him with the spoon again. Drops of soup splattered against the wall and trickled down Otabek’s undercut and onto his neck. “I said no pepper.”

            “I’m still right,” Otabek pouted, eyeing the spoon. His back was against the wall, blocking off his means of an escape. Yuri smirked.

            Then he yelped, because Otabek was holding him by the shoulders and rubbing soupy hair on the front of his shirt and face.

            “Altin!” he screeched, tapping the back of Otabek’s head with the spoon once more in a vain attempt at self-defense. “What the fuck! What the actual fuck! I’m going to murder you and cook you into the fucking soup and then I’m going to feed the soup to your family and they will ask me why there’s so much fucking pepper in my fucking soup! I’m gonna- stop laughing!”

            Otabek wheezed at him. His face was bright red as he sank to the floor, snorting with laughter.

            “I’m threatening you, asshole!” Yuri bit back a giggle. “You’re supposed to be afraid! You’re supposed to apologize and beg my forgiveness!”

            Otabek cackled wordlessly. Soup was smeared across his cheek.

 _Lick it off,_ whispered the back of Yuri’s mind.

            “What the fuck,” he said out loud. He felt his face flush as red as Otabek’s.

            “I think I should- I should be-“ Otabek gulped a breath of air around his lingering laughter. He wiped at his eyes. “I should be asking you that. Soup, Yura? My family?”

            “You’d deserve it,” Yuri grumbled. His own blush was darkening: he still wanted to lick Otabek’s cheekbone. Or maybe not _lick,_ that could be later, but-

            “Are you okay?” asked Otabek. He climbed to his feet. “Yura?”

            “I’m fine,” Yuri replied. He dropped the spoon into the sink and reached for a clean one. This was going to kill him. He could ignore it when they were being shipped all over the world every couple of weeks, when they woke up before dawn and trained and competed and collapsed at the end of the day with barely enough energy to say goodnight. He’d pushed it aside when he walked in to find Otabek hunched on the floor, trembling and not-quite-human. He’d shut it out when Otabek retreated, locking himself in his flat and speaking to no one but Yuri, when it had nearly broken him trying to keep Otabek from shattering the rest of the way.

            But now… there wasn’t enough to hold him back, but it wasn’t just _happening_. He didn’t know how to make it happen.

            “I’ll need a shower before we head out,” Otabek said, and Yuri could feel Otabek’s steady, questioning gaze on the back of his neck. “That would be a weird way to meet your choreographer, otherwise.”

            “Help me clean up first,” Yuri said, struggling to keep his voice even. Otabek was already next to him, turning on the tap to wet a dishrag. “I’m gonna check the soup.”

            “More salt,” Otabek reminded him. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed as they came away with congealing clumps of solyanka. He opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything, and tugged at his hair again. “Yura, can we-“

            “Talk?” Yuri tried to swallow the lump in his throat. Otabek nodded. “Thank fuck. Yes. Okay.”

            “I-“ Otabek shifted his weight. “Was-“

            The pressure in Yuri’s chest grew. Something was going to give.

            Something gave.

            “I wanted to lick your face,” he blurted.

            “What?” Otabek stared at him.

            “Oh god,” Yuri mumbled. His ears caught fire. “Um. Shit.”

            “Do you mean-“ started Otabek, but Yuri broke in. He had to get this out before he died of embarrassment, right here on his kitchen floor.

            “I like you, I know- I think you like me,” Yuri said, listening to his voice rise as he continued, “and I was having really fucking weird thoughts about the soup on your face even though it has too much pepper now and I can’t deal with this anymore so can we _please_ decide what we’re going to do about it?”

            Otabek exhaled loudly, obviously shaken under the thin veneer of drying soup. “Yes. Yeah.”

            “Okay.”

            They stared at each other. Otabek cleared his throat.

            “Boyfriends?” he said. Yuri held back a hysterical giggle as Otabek’s voice squeaked. “I mean… I know it’s complicated. With-“ he gestured vaguely at himself- “everything that’s going on. If you don’t want to, or you want to wait and see if I can figure this out, that’s fine. I understand, it’s probably best-“

            “Let’s fucking do it.” Yuri grinned. His legs were overcooked noodles, and his hands shook as he dropped the clean spoon onto the counter. “Holy shit. Okay.”

            “Do we need to talk more?” Otabek looked as shell-shocked as Yuri felt.

            “Uh, later, probably,” Yuri decided. “I need to eat something before I fucking pass out.”

            “Me too,” Otabek said. The corner of his lips twitched into a smile.

            Neither of them moved.

            Yuri twitched. “Can I just- can we-“

            He stepped forward and froze as Otabek grimaced, his face falling.

            “I don’t think we can,” he whispered, shifting backwards, away from Yuri. “I don’t- I’m sorry- I don’t know how this is spread, and if we kiss, what if it doesn’t have to be a bite? You were right, just being close to me… that doesn’t make sense. But this is pushing it. This isn’t safe. If you don’t want to do this at all, it’s okay. But I won’t risk you like that.”

            Yuri closed his eyes for a moment. “Okay,” he said, opening them again. “We’re still doing this. But you’re right. No actual kissing until we know more.”

            He watched a degree of tension drop from Otabek’s shoulders.

            “No lips,” he continued. “Keep your spit to yourself. But we don’t have to be _too_ careful, because otherwise everyone would be a werewolf, right? So I can…” He stepped forward. Otabek didn’t retreat, didn’t flinch away as Yuri traced his jaw. “Can I?” Yuri whispered.

            “Yes,” came the quiet reply.

            Yuri pressed his lips to the soft skin in front of Otabek’s ear, just where his cheekbone sat beneath his temple. If he moved down the tiniest bit, stubble would scrape the corner of his mouth, too short to be seen but just enough to be felt. He considered it. Otabek smelled like soup and hair gel.

 _Do it,_ the little voice insisted.

 _No,_ Yuri told it.

_Yes._

            He licked Otabek’s cheek and pulled back.

            “Okay, you were right about the fucking pepper,” he growled.

:: :: ::

             Viktor looked up from his book as he heard the door open.

            “- don’t have to stay the whole time if you don’t want to,” came Yuri’s voice, slightly warped as it echoed along the hallway. “You can just hear the music and jet.”

            “I’ll see,” replied someone else in a soft, deep rumble. That must be Otabek. Viktor recognized his voice, now, different as it was from the tinny scratching audio of his laptop speakers. “I’m interested.”

            Their footsteps approached before he heard Otabek stop outside the entrance to the rink.

            “What’s up?” Yuri asked.

            “There’s no one here,” Otabek said quietly. Viktor sat up straighter. He could hear all that, then? “And we’re late already.”

            “He’s probably late too.”

            Viktor held himself as still as possible, his mind racing. He hadn’t expected this. He could barely make out the boys’ breathing, but Otabek was sure of himself. Viktor could start breathing himself, but mimicking a heartbeat was out of the question. He stayed frozen in place. He might as well have been a statue. At least this way, he’d get a look at Otabek, and if Yuri seemed at ease he may not be spooked enough to bolt.

            “That smell’s back,” Otabek whispered, panic rising. “It’s strong. Yura, let’s go. Text your choreographer and we’ll meet somewhere else.” 

 _No, no, no._ Viktor gritted his teeth. _Come on, Yura, argue. It’s what you do best._

            “Okay,” Yuri agreed, unsure but cautious.

 _Shit._ If Otabek left now, Viktor might never be able to get close. The kid would be too scared.

            “Yura!” he called. “Is that you? We’re late, let’s get started.”

            “Beka, that’s him,” Yuri murmured, and a moment later, his blond head poked through the doorway. “It’s fine.”

            Otabek Altin appeared beside Yuri and now Viktor was close enough to hear the staccato rhythm of his pounding heart, the ragged drag of his breaths. “Yura. Yura, we have to go, now.”

            “Beka, what-“

            Time for damage control. “Let me explain a moment,” Viktor said, still seated. “If you could just-“

            “He’s dead,” Otabek stared straight at Viktor as he grabbed Yuri’s wrist. “I can’t hear anything. _Now._ ”

            “But he’s-“ Yuri looked at Viktor and back to Otabek and didn’t move as Otabek tugged at his arm. “He’s right there?”

            “He doesn’t have a _pulse_ ,” Otabek hissed.

            Yuri glanced back at Viktor once more, his green eyes wide as a cat’s, glinting with confused fear. Viktor nodded back at him and lifted a hand, gesturing at the exit.

 _Go,_ he mouthed, and listened to their footsteps stumble down the hallway.

            He took out his phone.

 _Please don’t let him run,_ he typed. _I’m here to help Otabek. I promise._

            He stood up and brushed invisible motes of dust from his jacket before calling Yakov.

            “So, that wasn’t great."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for Yuri's program is [Герой Асфальта](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K-ukk-8EVY) (Hero of Asphalt) by Aria, and it's the most Otayuri song I've heard in my entire life. Please join me in my intense love for 1980s Russian metal.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so remember those warnings from the first chapter about possible temporary character death, graphic injury or violence, and extreme angst? We are now in the final arc, so fasten your seatbelts because all of those may occur at any point in time from here on out. Shit's gonna get dark soon because I had a hell of a week and I need to take it out on something.   
> If you want to wait to read the finale until there's a resolution, I recommend stopping here and waiting another two weeks (i'm gonna try to stay on schedule i promise) until the fic is finished.

        Commuters rushed in and out of trains. The platform was busy, even this late in the evening, but passersby barely glanced in their direction; no one wanted to chat with a pair of strung-out kids hunched in the back of the station.

        Yuri alternated between sitting next to Otabek and pacing a small circle in front of him, like a dog on a very, very short leash. Otabek watched him chew on a strand of hair that had escaped from beneath his beanie. He looked rough: baggy joggers tossed over his practice clothes and a torn jacket that was fashionable with the right jeans, topped off by the confused glassiness of his eyes and the spit-slicked strand of hair.

        Otabek knew that he looked worse. He brushed the hair from Yuri’s mouth as he paced by.

        “We need to stop and think about this,” Yuri muttered, sinking down next to him.

        “I have,” Otabek replied shakily. “Yura, believe me, I’ve been thinking.”

        “Why are we in a train station?”

        “Lots of people.” _Lots of witnesses._ Their chatter and noise stretched his attention to its breaking point, and he tried to focus on Yuri instead. “And trains… go places,” he added quietly.

        “No fucking shit- Beka. _Beka,_ what the fuck are you thinking?”

        The world was moving too quickly around him. Otabek braced himself. It would be difficult to get the words out in time.

        “He’s here looking for me,” he whispered. Yuri leaned in closer to listen. “I smelled him around my building. He was trying to get me to come in with you. The timing – they should have given you longer to adjust, you just grew how many centimeters and there’s no way you’ve adjusted yet.”

        Yuri grimaced, but he didn’t interrupt.

        “It’s not a coincidence. He used you and I don’t want to know why he’s interested in me.” _Breathe._ In, out. In again. “If I’m not here, Viktor doesn’t have a reason to involve you.”

        “I involved myself,” Yuri snarled, grabbing Otabek’s wrist. “Like you said, _we_ don’t know why he’s here. Why do you think he doesn’t want to help?”

        Otabek stood up. Pulling his arm out of Yuri’s grasp was as easy as picking up a kitten. “I know how other people have _helped_ me.”

        Specifically, they’d thrown him into walls until he hit the door, and they hadn’t even been looking for him.

        Yuri scrambled to his feet. “He’s choreographed for me before. He’s friends with Yakov.”

        How much did Yakov know about Viktor? About Otabek? Had he guessed that there was something wrong with Otabek, or- “Yura. You didn’t-“

        “I didn’t tell anyone anything,” Yuri hissed coldly. “I don’t care how fucking paranoid you are, Otabek Altin, don’t you dare finish that sentence.”

        “I-“ Everything was falling down around him, no matter how hard Otabek tried to make sense of it. He hadn’t done anything right so far, not from the moment he’d woken up in the woods. “Yura, I-“

        “I don’t. Break. Promises.”

        He felt small enough to be crushed under a careless foot. “I know. I’m sorry.”

        “He said he’d explain,” Yuri continued, holding up his phone. “I think… I think we should let him.”

        “Is this safe?” Otabek watched the gears turn in Yuri’s mind. Yuri was reckless, but only with himself.

        “Probably,” Yuri decided. “Besides Lilia, Yakov doesn’t hang out with anyone who seems super murder-y, right? And.”

        “And?” Otabek shivered as Yuri drew near, his breath ghosting over the spot that his lips had pressed against hours before. A flush of heat burned away the nervous shaking of his hands.

        “Beka, it’s a chance,” whispered Yuri. “This whole fucking mess. It could- maybe it could just be over.”

        “I could be normal.”

        Yuri wanted someone who was normal. Why wouldn’t he?

        “You, normal?” Yuri rolled his eyes before frowning at Otabek. “Beka, don’t fucking- I want you to be happy again and you’re not, okay?”

        He always did have a knack for knowing exactly where to drive in the knife. Otabek stared down at the tiled floor, its crisp black and white pattern shifted into grayscale by a patina of grime.

        “Don’t you want to know if there’s something we can do?”

        He also knew just how to twist the blade.

        “I don’t want to hear that there isn’t,” Otabek said softly. 

        For a moment, he thought the admission had gotten lost in the in the maelstrom of conversations and footsteps and rattle of luggage, swept up into the echoing arches of the ceiling far above – but no. To all ears but his, the station was quiet.

        “That’s a bullshit reason,” Yuri snapped back. His face grew stormy. “Do you just want to run away? Is that why we’re in a fucking train station?”  

        This time, it was Otabek reaching for Yuri’s hand. Yuri snatched it away.

        “Yura, I told you-“

        Yuri snorted derisively. “You won’t even tell yourself the truth right now, so why should I believe anything you say to me?”

        He almost snarled back. It was _his_ life, _his_ choice, and if he didn’t want to entrust it to a walking dead man who had done nothing so far but manipulate and use people – but Yuri’s eyes were lit with a gleam that wasn’t anger and wasn’t fear. More than anything, it looked like pain.

        Otabek took a breath and a mental step backwards. If their positions were reversed…

        Yuri would never have tried to hide from him. He wouldn’t have lied. He wouldn’t have thought about running. He wouldn’t let a chance slip away because he was too scared to chase it. Otabek pushed further, tried to imagine Yuri forced off the rink, lost and confused behind his mulish refusal to give up. He pictured himself standing by, unable to help.

        “You’re going to talk to Viktor no matter what,” Otabek said at last. It wasn’t a question.

        “I don’t break promises,” Yuri snarled, but without fire. “I haven’t lied to you. Not once. You don’t get to not trust me, Altin.”

        “I do trust you, Yura.” Otabek wished his voice wasn’t shaking as much as his hands. “That’s why I- why I know you were going to. You also promised to help me. And I’m being… a little bit stupid.”

        That startled Yuri into a bark of laughter. “Understatement of the year, but okay.”

        “I’ll talk to him,” Otabek continued. It was hard to force the words out; they were another promise he was terrified to keep. The hurricane in Yuri’s eyes began to calm. “But… carefully.”

        Yuri sighed. “Let’s go.”

        “ _Yura-_ “

        “ _Home,_ Beka, I’m not spending all night here.”

        “… Right.”

:: :: ::

        Of all the things Yuri might have expected, a midnight phone call from his coach wasn’t on the list. He’d be the first to admit that it was an oversight on his part, but… extenuating circumstances.

        “Yura?”

        “Uh, hello?” Yuri blinked blearily. The back of his neck was damp with sweat from where he’d been dozing on Otabek, who did a great impression of a living radiator these days. “Coach… Yakov. Is something-“ Yuri tried and failed to bite back a yawn. “- something wrong?”

        Silence. Weighty, uncomfortable silence. Otabek shifted beside him on the sofa, looking just as dazed as Yuri felt. If he hadn’t been asleep, he’d been deep enough in his own thoughts that it didn’t count as being awake either.

        “Yura,” Yakov grumbled. He sounded a couple decades older than he had a moment ago. “I talked to Viktor.”

        “Oh. That,” stammered Yuri, bolting upright. He locked eyes with Otabek, who appeared to be equally nervous but less surprised. Which, he decided, was fair. “We were- we were going to call you? In the morning. To ask about, uh, Viktor?”

        This should have been less weird than than werewolves and magic and life-altering crises and finding out his choreographer was a little bit dead, but no. Talking to his coach about all of that was another rung up the ladder of absurdity.

        “Is Otabek there?”

        “Uh, yeah. Yeah, he’s here.”

        “He’s- good. Good.” Yakov’s gruffness was tinged with something softer: relief. “Give him the phone.”

        Otabek would climb out a window to avoid a phone call under the best circumstances, and judging from the new panic in his eyes, Yuri figured that holding a phone with paws might pose a bit of a problem.

        “I’ll put you on speaker,” Yuri said carefully. _You good?_ he mouthed, and Otabek nodded. “Okay.”

        “Otabek?”

        “I’m-“ Otabek cleared his throat, shoulders hunched. “I’m here.”

        “You didn’t answer your phone.”

        Yuri choked on his sudden, helpless gasp of laughter as the anxiety in Otabek’s face was momentarily replaced with bemusement.

        It was enough to shake Yuri out of his own frozen hesitance. He was already sitting next to his werewolf ( _werewolf_ ) boyfriend ( _boyfriend,_ because oh fuck, that actually happened) in the middle of the night getting scolded by their coach who apparently had known way more than they thought, so really, he might as well deal with the rest of it too.

        “Who’s Viktor?” Yuri demanded. “Like, who is he really. And also, what is he? Why is he here? How did he know? What _does_ he know? Wait, do you actually know about any of this or-“

        Yakov grunted. Yuri thought he could hear the vein throbbing in his forehead. He shut up.

        “Viktor Nikiforov is here because I asked him to find out what was happening to my student,” Yakov replied, his voice heavy. “Viktor is…” He paused. “Someone who knows about these sorts of things,” he finished awkwardly.

        Otabek tensed. Yuri lifted an eyebrow.

        “ _What_ is he?”

        Yakov coughed. “Yura, I take it you know-“

        “Yes, I’m all caught up,” interrupted Yuri. “Now _please_ tell me what sort of magic bullshit is going on with Viktor.”

        “He is a vampire.”

        Mortification oozed from Yuri’s phone as Yakov coughed again.

 _This isn’t funny,_ Yuri told himself. _Don’t fucking laugh, this isn’t funny._

        Okay, so his coach just admitted to hiring a vampire choreographer as a supernatural detective. It was a little funny. Yuri bit his lip to hold back his hysterical giggle while Otabek stared at the phone like it had just grown legs and begun to waltz.

        “Right. A _vampire._ He’s a _vampire._ ” No heartbeat, no breath. There was one mystery answered. Yuri choked down another laugh, because that shouldn’t have made their night make more sense. “So on a murder scale of one to ten…”

:: :: ::

        “I told you so.” Yuri stuck his tongue out at Otabek, giddy with relief and exhaustion. “Beka, he’s here to help. To help _you._ I told you Yakov was on your side.”

        Otabek didn’t look convinced, only shellshocked.

        “When we go talk to him- or you, I guess, if you want to do this alone that’s fine too, whatever-“ Yuri stopped. “Can you talk to him? Without, uh, wolfing out?”

        “Uh,” muttered Otabek. He picked at the sleeve of his jacket. “Maybe. I have to.”

        “Over the phone first, then?” Yuri ran his fingers through the greasy strands of his hair. It was a wonder he hadn’t pulled it all out by now. His brain was moving so quickly it might jitter right out of his head. “Texting even. That would be fine. Or skype? Whatever. And if you have to stop tonight it doesn’t matter, there’s like a week to the full moon anyway so you can just-“

        Otabek was smiling. It was faint, uncertain – no one who wasn’t fluent in the meaning of every single twitch of his face would have noticed – but it was absolutely, undeniably there.

        “It’s going to get better now,” Yuri whispered. “Beka, I promise, it’s going to get better.”

        “Yeah.”

        “Go on, get some sleep,” Yuri said, then leaned in to drop a kiss on the side of Otabek’s forehead. “Ask about the kissing thing. Don’t forget.”   

        Yuri collapsed onto the sofa as soon as the door closed and let out a shaky sigh. His thoughts burned too brightly and too quickly, leaving scorching trails in their wake. It was over. It wasn’t over. It _would_ get better. Otabek would be okay.

        Part of him wished that Otabek hadn’t left for the night, but it was nice to be alone.

        Yuri waited several minutes before scooping up Potya and cuddling her against his chest. “It is going to get better,” he murmured into her fur. “It has to. It fucking has to, doesn’t it?”

        She purred.

        “He was right,” Yuri whispered. “I would have talked to Viktor no matter what. I would have lied to him and then gone back to the rink and told him everything. Even though I promised. I should have told Yakov. He guessed before I found out. Beka had to go through another two months of bullshit because he thought everyone would- would hate him, I could have-“

        Potya squeaked at him in protest. Hug time was over.

        “I should have gotten a stuffed animal,” he told her reproachfully. “Grouch.”

        His head was spinning too fast to sleep. Yuri thought he might explode if he couldn’t slow it down.

        He was still wearing the workout clothes he’d been in all night, but his hair was an oily tangle from being pulled and raked and chewed, so he took a shower and changed anyway before grabbing his bag from by the door.

        At least he could sleep in - Yakov had given him the day off practice.

        Yuri headed to the rink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings, content warnings, etc etc etc. Heed them.   
> I wrote this entire chapter in one sitting, help me.

            Otabek slept . Cold, silent figures followed him through the shadows of a never-ending maze of alleyways. Moments later, he was the one leading the chase, tearing through a forest that shone bright as day under a moon of molten silver. The figures were running with him. They smiled and whispered to him as he raced through the woods, never pausing for breath, but the wind stole their words before Otabek could make them out. Trees blurred past, then low buildings, and the dirt underfoot became pavement in blocks and patches as they drew into the city.

            “Where are you going, Beka?” someone asked, and Otabek turned to them without moving. Yuri stood in the center of the platform between the gleaming tiled floor and airy arched ceilings. Trains roared by, nearly drowning him out with their silence.

            “I don’t know,” Otabek told him. He tried to step forward and found himself unable to lift his feet.

            Yuri glared at him.

            “I just got here,” Otabek explained desperately. It was the rule, it _was,_ but Yuri’s frown deepened. “I’m not allowed to go yet.”

            “You’re late. Worlds was yesterday.” Yuri held out his medal. It shimmered, _gold silver bronze nothing,_ until it faded from his hands.

            Otabek woke up with a headache. His sheets, damp with sweat, stuck to his bare shoulder as he sat up and reached for the glass of water on his bedside table. It was almost empty already. He groaned; the few drops that were left had been sitting there for two nights and tasted like dust. It did nothing to ease the nausea that was welling in the back of Otabek’s throat. He needed food, tea, and water that didn’t leave him feeling like he’d just licked the inside of a storm drain.

            Seven in the morning.

            Otabek rubbed his eyes. In the past twelve hours, he’d run from a vampire, chatted with his former coach about vampires, found out vampires exist, and – his mind slammed the gate shut, but not before he could catch a glimpse of hope – offered the first hint of a way out. And Yuri had kissed him (sort of).

            He wasn’t sure which of those felt the most believable, because none of them seemed like they should be real.

            It hadn’t been enough sleep, but it was more than Otabek had managed in weeks. His pillow was now cold as well as damp with sweat. It didn’t tempt him back.

            Otabek didn’t text Yuri. He, at least, should get a decent amount of rest.

            His phone rang just as the water boiled and Otabek’s heart stuttered. _Yakov,_ the screen told him.

            Well, there was no avoiding it now.

            “Hello?” Otabek said, switching hands so he could fill the teapot.

            “Otabek.” Yakov’s voice was so hoarse and soft that it took Otabek a few seconds to recognize his own name. Had he slept at all? “Come to Lilia’s house…” He cut off with a rough cough. “Lilia’s flat at nine.”

            Something was wrong with his breathing. Otabek’s hand tightened around the kettle’s handle as he set it back on the stove.

            “Okay,” he replied, bemused.

            “You know where it is.”

            “Yeah. What-“

            “I have to go.”

            The call ended. Otabek drank his tea slowly, watching the clock and trying not to think. His headache, which had begun to fade, redoubled its ache.

            At five minutes to nine, Otabek parked his bike on the street outside Lilia’s building. He couldn’t quite bring himself to call it her flat: she owned an entire floor of the massive structure, and he’d gotten lost in its long hallways more than once while visiting Yuri early in their friendship. It was, in sheer area, larger than his grandparents’ two-story home.

            He rang the bell. A second later, a buzzer hummed demurely and the latch unlocked with a smooth _click._ Otabek stepped into the hallway, which gleamed with dark wood and pristine paint, and climbed the stairs.

            Lilia let Otabek in, and a live wire of fear jolted through him. Her makeup, always perfect, was smudged and unfinished. Her eyes, always stern, were tinged pink.

            Otabek stopped breathing as he followed her inside without a word. Mila was hunched on the sofa. Her face was hidden, but wet sobs echoed in her chest, a steady rhythm of gasps and gulps that suggested she’d been crying for long enough that her body couldn’t remember how to stop. Yakov sat beside her, his face grey and etched with deep lines.

            Mila, Yakov, Lilia. Yuri wasn’t there. Otabek bit his lip. He should be here. Whatever had happened was important. Where was he?

            “Please sit down, Otabek,” Lilia instructed. She lowered herself into an armchair and folded her hands. They were shaking. Otabek tasted blood, and a second later, felt the sting of his lip before it could heal.

            He sat.

            “There was…” Lilia paused and took a breath. “There was an accident early this morning. Yura was skating.”

            An accident. The room twisted and danced with black spots. Yuri. An accident. It had to be serious, something more than a sprain or a broken bone. Otabek couldn’t speak. He waited helplessly for Lilia to continue. Beside him, Mila cried harder, and a shuddering sigh fell from Yakov’s lips.

            “Yura passed,” she said quietly.

              _No._

            Otabek tried to wrench himself awake. The room didn’t change. Lilia’s expression behind her imperfect makeup didn’t change. He looked at Mila, at Yakov: he’d misheard. He’d misunderstood.

            Yakov’s cheeks were streaked with tears.

            “Yura-“ Otabek started. His throat closed, choking him. “Yura- he’s-“

            “I’m sorry, Otabek,” Lilia said. Her eyes were hollow, dark, pulling him in.

            “Nikolai,” Otabek managed. “Did you-“

            “We’ve spoken with him.”

            No. That made it real. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be, but each second pushed him closer to the edge. Otabek touched his pocket, ran his fingers over the corner of his phone. He could pick it up, call Yuri, hear the sleep-roughened swearing about being woken up too early, the quiet question behind his curses: is something wrong?

 _Nothing’s wrong,_ Otabek wanted to say.

            His skin stretched hot and tight over his bones. It prickled and scorched the icy flashes that flickered through his limbs, ricocheted off the blinding ache of the thoughts he flinched from. It threatened to split him open.

            He stood up. For a few minutes, Otabek had forgotten what was wrong with him. He fought back a bitter, hysterical laugh. Yuri had spent so long trying to distract him.

            Well, he’d succeeded.

            Lilia’s face blurred.

            Otabek’s bones shifted, grinding in his neck, his shoulders.

            “I have to go,” he whispered, stumbling towards the door. “I have to-“

            So this was what it felt like when the world ended.

:: :: ::

            Mila’s throat was raw. It grated like sandpaper when she swallowed, doing her best to breath around the thick phlegm that clung to the back of her tongue, trying over and over again simply because her body didn’t leave her any choice.

            She left Lilia and Yakov alone. The juniors would begin to arrive soon, trickling in one by one, yawning and wondering why they’d been granted a few more hours of sleep. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t even stand the thought of watching them as Lilia explained, her words quiet and precise: shock, confusion, grief, indifference masked by a façade of the sadness they knew they were supposed to feel.

            The streets were full of cars. A horn blared at the intersection and Mila bared her teeth, her pulse racing as she hissed, “Shut _up._ ”

            The city continued. Mila wanted to burn it down, lashing out until nothing was left but rubble and dust.

            She couldn’t turn her feet towards her flat. It would mean walking past the rink. If she destroyed the city, it would be the first thing to go. It would be the only structure left untouched. Mila knew, the certainty sinking into her bones, that she would never be able to look at it again. Not in person. Not in photos. Not in her memories.

            Instead, she just walked.

            The key squeaked in the lock as Mila let herself into the flat. Yuri had never gotten it fixed.

            Someone else was already there. Mila’s heart leapt into her mouth for the briefest of moments: _hope dies last,_ she thought, another sob wracking her body, but Otabek didn’t look up as she forced herself to venture inside. He sat on the floor, as if he’d collapsed while crossing the room, staring blankly into the distance. He hugged Potya to his chest.

            Potya’s bowl was filled with a scoop of fresh food.

            Mila dropped down on the rug beside him. It was covered with cat hair, and the whole place smelled like it always had, of cooking and hair products and the cheap cologne Yuri never learned not to use.

            “Moscow,” she croaked eventually. “It’ll be in Moscow.”

            A shiver ran through Otabek.  

            “We need to help,” whispered Mila. “They can’t- Nikolai and Yakov and Lilia- they can’t do everything. We need to- we should.”

            She curled her fingers through Potya’s silky fur. The cat purred and stretched.

            They sat together in silence, neither offering comfort, neither taking it.

:: :: ::

            Otabek helped plan his boyfriend’s funeral.

            A small blonde woman was the first to arrive. She rushed over to Nikolai and wrapped him in a tight hug, looking like she wanted to cry but she wasn’t sure if she should. Her large green eyes stayed dry.

 _I’ve never told you about my mom,_ Yuri whispered in his ear.

            A thin, balding man watched her, hovering at the edges. Two young children, both with cornsilk hair and bright bluish-green eyes, clung to his legs. 

:: :: ::

            “And you didn’t think to say anything?” Yakov roared.

            “What could I have told you?” Viktor protested. He glanced at the bundle of blankets he’d settled gently onto the hotel room’s tiny couch. “I couldn’t-“

            “You let us all think-“ hissed Yakov. He sputtered to a halt. “You let me believe, you let _Nikolai_ believe-“

            “I didn’t know if I could save him.”

            The admission rang out, terse and weary.

            “You could have-“

            “No.” Viktor pinched the bridge of his nose. “I couldn’t let you hope for something that was, at best, a long shot. Now, please, let’s get on with this. Where is Mr. Plisetsky’s home?”

            “Thirty minutes’ drive.” Yakov reached for his car keys, but Viktor shook his head. “Vitya, what is it now? Do you need to wait another week to be _sure?_ ”

            “It’s too close to sunrise. Tonight.”

            “What should I do?”

            Viktor inspected Yakov. He hasn’t thought of his friend as old before, but it’s unmistakable, written in his stiff joints and the wrinkles folding his face. Viktor supposed that he, too, was old.

             “Make sure room service doesn’t so much as look at the door,” Viktor instructs. “When the stores open, find some clothes, something he’d wear. We'll clean him up. Then call whoever else needs to know.” He sighed. “Otabek. Find Otabek.”

            “Ah.” Yakov’s face paled from red to pink. “You haven’t…”

            “I was a little busy,” snapped Viktor. “No, Otabek has not been my top priority recently.”

            Yakov clucked and sputtered. Always a mother hen, Viktor thought. And his chicks…

            “One thing at a time, Yasha,” he said softly. “One thing at a time. Tomorrow, we find Otabek. Tonight, we tell Nikolai that his grandson is a vampire.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh i'm sorry one more chapter y'all. this got a little out of hand. Plus side, this is the closest I've ever stayed to an outline, so... character development?   
> Also I think this chapter will be very confusing for any of you who haven't read the main story, so feel free to ask me for clarification if you're a normal-ish person and don't want to go back and catch up via the entire 154,000 word fic.

            “I just need some time,” Otabek said again. “I’ll- I’ll come home soon.”

            Zhibek sighed into the phone. His sister’s breath crackled like popcorn, like breaking bones, in his ear. “Beka, will you talk to Ana?”

            “No.” Otabek paced down the narrow hallway outside his bedroom. It smelled of stale air and Yuri, and he cursed himself for coming back. “No, I can’t.”

            “Beshka…”

            He stopped and leaned against the wall, letting his forehead press into the paint. Otabek could hear the strain in Zhibek’s voice as she struggled to find the right words, as she tried not to cry, as she did her best to help him. He felt like a lost child, and she was younger still.

            A year younger than Yuri was.

            “I can’t,” he said, letting the dull ache of pressure build in his head. “She’ll… you know how she is. She’ll decide what should happen, and then it will. She’ll decide- she’ll decide how I should feel and when it should get better and I can’t. Not now.”

            “Yeah. I get it.” She paused. “And?”

            “What?”

            “You just… sounded like there was something else.”

            “Zhibeshka, it’s not your job to take care of me,” Otabek said softly. “I’ll come home when I can.”

            He missed her as soon as the call ended; the longing for his family was so strong that Otabek almost picked his phone up again to tell her he’d been wrong, he’d be in Almaty that night.

            He didn’t. That night, he wouldn’t be a brother she recognized - not until the moon slunk back under the horizon.  

            For the first time, Otabek didn’t fear losing himself to the wolf. 

:: :: ::

            Mila bit her lip to hold back a yell.

            This was how Yuri had felt. He’d told her, no more than a few weeks ago, his face pink with alcohol and nervous energy as she did her best to distract him from Otabek’s cold shoulder.

            Her world, however, would never back down no matter how much she hissed and spat.

            “I don’t know where he is,” she told Yakov. “I’ve looked. I’ve been looking.”

            Mila ran a finger over the blister on her thumb, a mark left by the first spell that had exploded in its copper bowl. Otabek wasn’t _anywhere_ , so far as she could tell, and she hated him for it. She couldn’t lose both of them.

            Part of her was relieved that Yakov wasn’t able to see her face over the phone. Another part, one that was more scared and more desperate and more hopeless, wished that her expression could tell him everything she didn’t know how to say.

            “We shouldn’t have let him go off by himself,” Mila said, cutting off whatever Yakov’s reply had been. She wasn’t listening. “He was- he hasn’t been okay for months and he only talked to Yura, he wasn’t in any shape to-“

            “Mila,” Yakov said as her voice trailed off. “We couldn’t have stopped him from leaving.”

            “But-“

            “ _Mila._ ” Yakov didn’t sound like he should, and Mila’s outburst dried up in her throat. He was sad, and exhausted, but it was the wrong _sort_ of sad and exhausted. “Are you in Moscow?”

            “Yes, I’m with my parents, but what-“

            “There are some things you should know.” He grunted, clearing his throat with a grating, wet old-man cough. It was the same one she’d heard before every rare, awkward moment of reassurance, but it never came.

            Somehow, that was more comforting. Empty words were the easiest to say, but those with more weight took time.

            She walked to the train station. Mila hadn’t left her parents’ house since the funeral, and the spring sunset was more colorful than she thought should have been permitted. She turned up the volume on her music. It wasn’t enough of a distraction, still not loud enough to lose herself in like she had in the dozens of failed tracking rituals, but at least it did something to drown out her mind on the hour-long ride into Moscow proper.

            Yakov was waiting for her at the platform.

            “Coach,” she called. Her anxious curiosity faded as he turned to her, his face folded into its habitual frown like old, soft leather. She’d been with her family, but… Well.

            She hugged him.

            “Coach De Luca submitted the documentation to expedite your visa,” Yakov grunted. He patted her shoulder uncertainly and Mila let go before she started crying again.

            “Yeah. She emailed me.” Mila sniffed. “I’m going to keep calling you Coach though, okay?”

            “Right,” he said gruffly. “Well then.”

            They ordered tea at a café outside the station, because they were both too Russian to do otherwise. She wrinkled her nose as steam fogged up her glasses – contact lenses had proved to be too much for her swollen eyes – as she thought about what Otabek would say.

 _Tea was discovered in Kazakhstan,_ he’d insisted before. No one else made it right, not even Russians. That was back when he smiled all the time, if you knew how to look for it.

            “Beka,” Mila blurted out. “You said-“

            Yakov nodded.

            Mila took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I can’t tell you how I know because you won’t believe me but I’ve been looking for him.” Her hands were wrapped around her drink tightly enough that she was in danger of breaking the thin porcelain, and they shook, spilling drops of scalding tea across her fingers and the table. “I can’t find- I think- I think he’s-“

            “He’s alive, Mila.”

            She looked up at him. His face was red and blobby through her watery eyes.

            “I was told you might be using some methods,” Yakov grumbled, “that people would find unusual and unexpected.”

            Mila’s mouth hung open. She filled it with tea.

            Yakov looked constipated as he continued, “I was also informed that they would probably fail to locate Otabek and lead you to some grave conclusions.” His face had shifted from pink to puce. He couldn’t raise his voice to a shout in the café, but it was clear he wanted to. “Unfortunately, my _associate_ didn’t think to tell me this beforehand.“

            “Beka’s okay,” Mila whispered. She wiped at the tea that had dribbled down her chin and onto her shirt. “He’s okay, you’re sure?”

            “He’s alive and unharmed, as far as we know,” Yakov assured her. “Which I wish I’d been able to tell you earlier, along with-“

            “Wait. You know about the, um.” She dabbed at the puddle of tea on the table. “The, you know, spells. With magic. That, uh, thing.”

            “Yes, I’ve been made aware.”

            “Oh. That’s… cool, then.” The café was spinning around her, and Mila shook her head to clear it as she gripped the edge of the table and leaned forward. “You’ve told his family? That he’s okay, at least, I guess not how- wait, how do you know? Who’s your, um, associate? How do you know about any of this, have you-“

            “We should talk somewhere quieter,” Yakov grumbled.

            “No one actually listens, you know.” She took a too-large gulp of tea and grimaced. “I told Yura…” The room went grey. Mila looked down. “I told Yura for years that I was a witch. He just thought I was joking. But he gave me a deck of tarot cards for my birthday.”

            Every year. Every single year, he’d given her a new deck with that same smug smirk.

            Yakov paid for their tea and led her outside. His face had gone strange again. She’d never seen him grieving before, she supposed. They sat on a bench in a nearby park and Mila shivered as a sharp breeze cut through her jacket, which was too thin now that the sun had left them behind.

            “Otabek’s family believes I’ve hired a private investigator.” Yakov glowered into the distance. Dishonesty rested on him like indigestion; he was never anything other than exactingly honest. Except, apparently, now. And for however long he’d known about magic. And Mila’s own hobby. So, forever, maybe. Ugh. “They know he’s alive and, I’ve been assured, probably safe.”

            “But _how_ do you know that?”

            “Viktor will explain.”

            “Viktor?” Mila stopped. It wasn’t an uncommon name, but nothing about this night had been normal. “Not the nocturnal mystery choreographer Viktor, right?”

            Yakov appeared to be arguing with himself. Mila twisted her cold fingers together. He was- she didn’t know how old he was, but surely the last couple of weeks hadn’t been easy on him. Why was he still in Moscow, even?

            “That Viktor,” growled Yakov, and his expression had gone back into the odd shape she couldn’t understand. “You know about… your work, but there’s more than that.”

            “Um. Yes. I know.”

            “People who aren’t… human.”

            Yakov would make a terrible Yoda, Mila decided. He couldn’t even get through Supernatural 101 without looking like sheer embarrassment was going to make him ill. He might as well – oh. Her thoughts clicked into focus. “Viktor’s not human.”

            “It’s-“

            “Night. He’s only out at night. Not even sunset.” Mila snapped her fingers. “Gloves. He always wears gloves. And he doesn’t smile? And there’s no way someone should be that pale, he looks… dead. _Dead._ He’s a vampire, isn’t he? Wait, you’re friends with a vampire? Is that how you knew about this?”

            “Well-“ Yakov cleared his throat again and Mila winced. _Ugh._ Did old men _have_ to do that all the time?

            Oh.

_Oh._

            Yakov hadn’t looked like someone who was mourning. Not really.

            Mila spoke the words without letting them touch her mind. It hurt too much to think, to hope, even for an instant. “He didn’t- Viktor, did he-“

            That was stupid. Yuri had fallen. There wasn’t time to save him, and even if- no. She’d seen him buried.

            “Yes.”

            Her heart stopped. “What?”

            “Yura isn’t gone,” Yakov said gently. “He’s… he’ll be different, Mila.”

            She was already on her feet. “I need to see him. Now.” She watched Yakov stand up, slowly, too slowly, each split second an eternity between the thrum of her racing pulse. “Where is he, I can’t- fuck, just tell me where, _please._ ”

            “He’s not awake-“

            “I need to see him _now,_ ” Mila hissed. “Please.”

            “Nikolai’s house.” Yakov sighed. He must have realized that she was going to go ahead no matter what he said. “The address is-“

            “I know where,” Mila called back. She was already running. It wasn’t far, and she wasn’t an Olympic athlete for nothing.

:: :: ::

             Viktor got to the door before the visitor – Mila, he supposed – could knock. If she was planning to knock, that is. She seemed intent on barreling into the house through whatever person or object stood in her way.

            She slowed down before slamming into Viktor, but not quickly enough to avoid a collision. He caught her before she could trip or crash into something more fragile, like Nikolai.

            “Hello,” Viktor said, pulling his hand away from her arm as he felt his palm burn and blister. Silver bracelets, he noted. “You must be-“

            “Where is he?” she gasped, blue eyes wide. “Coach said- he said-“

            “Yes, that is correct.” Viktor took a step to the left, just enough to block the stairwell. He heard Nikolai in the kitchen, standing up and walking slowly into the hall. How much had Yakov managed to tell her before she’d bolted to the house? “Mila, you have to understand that-“

            “Kolya,” Mila whispered, her eyes focusing behind him. “I-“

            “Yura is asleep in his room,” murmured Nikolai. His voice was hoarse with exhaustion. “It’s good to see you, Mila.”

            She sagged where she stood. “Can I… can I see him?”

            “In a moment,” Viktor said, catching her shoulder as she turned to the stairs. “First, there are some things you must understand.”

            She nodded, dazed.

            “Take off all your jewelry. Everything silver, wood, charmed…” He shrugged. Mila unhooked a bracelet. Her gaze was unfocused, but at least she seemed to be listening. “Yuri hasn’t woken up yet. It can take a while. He may or may not appear to be conscious, but he will not be lucid. Most likely, he will not realize who you are, and he is not in control of himself yet. If I say to step away from him, you will do so immediately.”

            “Right,” she mumbled. “But he will? I mean, he’ll wake up?”  

            “Yes.” Though Yuri had taken his time about it. “Eventually.”

            “Okay.” She hiccuped. Viktor hoped she wouldn’t start crying. Too many people had been crying around him, and he’d never quite figured out what to do about it.

            “One last thing,” he told her, guiding her up the stairs so she couldn’t bolt ahead. “This may be disturbing. He doesn't breathe, and he'll feel cold, but you must remember that he is alive.”

            He paused to listen before opening the door; it wouldn’t do to startle Yuri if he _had_ just woken up.

            Nothing.

            Viktor peeked inside. Yuri hadn’t moved.

            “Speak softly,” he murmured, switching on the nightlight to brighten the room enough for human eyes. “His body is still adjusting.”

            Mila paused at the doorway. She couldn’t see anything yet, he knew – she was looking into the darkness instead of through it – as she hovered in the doorway.

            Yuri had so many people waiting for him. No matter what Yakov said, Viktor didn’t regret waiting until he was as close to sure as he could be. He couldn’t have broken their hearts with hope.

            Familiar footsteps made their way up to the house. Viktor tipped his head. Yakov had finally caught up.

            “Yura?” Mila whispered, and Viktor winced as he heard her heartbeat catch. At least she was young. He wasn’t sure whether it was true or not that shock could cause a heart attack, but he’d been worried about Yuri’s grandfather. Luckily, stubbornness seemed to be a Plisetsky trait. “Hey, Yura.”

            She crept in. Viktor let himself fade into the shadowy corner, giving her what privacy he could.

            “They promised me you would be okay.” She sank into the chair by the bed. Her voice was shaking. “Asshole. You were jumping. I can’t believe you. God, Yura, you fucking… shit.”

            Mila reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Yuri’s forehead. Viktor readied himself.

            Yuri turned his face towards Mila’s hand, eyes closed, but following her with slow, jerky movements. He breathed in, not enough for Mila to notice. Scenting her.

            Viktor was across the room in an instant.

            He grabbed Mila’s hand and pulled it away from Yuri’s face. Mila gasped, startled, and looked up at him.

            “I suggest that you don’t do that,” Viktor said, with forced calm. “Unless you’d like to get bitten. The good news is that his responses are improving.”

            “Bit-“ Mila trembled. Viktor released her wrist. “Bitten.”

            “Yes. Vampire. Instincts. Bitten.”

            “Okay then.” She let out a shuddering sigh. “I can- can I hold his hand?”

            “That should be fine,” Viktor told her. “Mila, he won’t be a danger to you once he’s woken up. He’s not a monster.”

            “He’d hate to hear you say that.” Mila laughed weakly. “He’s always tried to be scary.”

            Instead of taking Yuri’s hand, she wrapped her arms around Viktor. Yakov did say she was a hugger. He rubbed her shoulder in a way that he hoped was comforting.

            “Thank you.” Oh, yes, she was crying. Viktor kept patting her back. He was getting better at this, he decided. “Thank you. I couldn’t- when I-“

            “Of course,” he said, peeling her off as gently as possible. It was better than-

            “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

            Ah. Well.

            “I understand how you must feel, but-“

            “Oh god,” she breathed. “Beka doesn’t know. No one told him, and we can’t find him. He doesn’t know. Oh, god.”

            Viktor resisted the urge to rub his temples. Tension headaches were a thing of his human past, but the past two weeks had tested that. “That’s the other reason you’re here, Mila.”


	10. Chapter 10

Branches blocked out the sky. They were no longer grey-brown streaks that cut the blue into broken, jagged pieces, but the framework for a canopy of flowers and bright, young leaves.

         Otabek pulled himself to his feet without bothering to admire spring’s beauty. It hung around him, vibrant and flat, no more real or entrancing than a photograph.

         This, he supposed, was what he had left: once a month, he would wake up, lost and dazed, with dreams of another life still heavy on his tongue. He would sit on the forest floor and try to remember his reasons for going back. Today, he had to call his sister. He had to go home.

         But that wouldn’t last. Otabek’s family could never find out. They’d push him away, or pull him close, and either way he would destroy them from the inside out. He would tear their lives to pieces until nothing and no one was left.

         There was a road nearby, interrupting the fragile scent of fresh growth with petrol and exhaust. Otabek began to walk.

         If he’d run at the beginning, Yuri’s thoughts wouldn’t have been so tangled that he had to try and skate them loose.

         If he’d run at the beginning, he wouldn’t have felt the warmth of Yuri’s lips against his cheek.   

         Otabek’s heart throbbed with a dull, sickening ache, but the sensation was distant. His emotions had been stretched past the breaking point, and now he was clutching razor-edged shards that left blood dripping from his fingers.

         Empty. He was empty.

         Occasionally, cars roared down the unseen road. They seemed to have no more interest than he did when it came to taking in the scenery. Hopefully someone would stop for him no matter how dazed and bedraggled he looked. Otabek’s thoughts flickered uneasily. He was beginning to suspect that he was very, very far from St. Petersburg.

         The road was void of cars when he finally reached it. Otabek picked a direction at random and followed it. Staying still meant thinking, so he didn’t stop to rest despite the exhaustion weighing down his heels.

:: :: ::

         A needle hung from the rearview mirror - the world’s worst car accessory.

         Mila’s eyes flicked nervously between the road and the needle as she tracked which direction it was pointing. The car crept forward with infuriating slowness, and it was only partly because she hadn’t driven since getting her license. Every bump in the road sent the needle, which was nearly as long as her hand, bouncing wildly at the end of its string as she leaned against the driver’s side door and waited for it to steady itself.

         It was working, though. Or at least, she hoped that whatever the spell had locked onto actually was Otabek. It was the work of half a dozen witches and advisors speaking three languages on a conference call with Viktor as their translator. Apparently werewolves were difficult to track down.

         The silver, her mom said. It was difficult to make a strong spell without silver.

         This needle was copper, and it was starting to quiver insistently as Mila wound her way through the forest. She was getting close. A few degrees one way or the other hadn’t made much of a difference when she was a hundred kilometers away, but now it jerked with every bend in the road.

         Maybe he’d be near the road, trying to get back to the city, or maybe he’d be passed out in the middle of nowhere. No one had been able to give her a solid answer. It depends, they’d said. Depends on what?

On everything.

Mila caught herself holding her breath. She exhaled, peeling her cramping fingers off of the wheel one at a time.

Someone was walking along the side of the road. Their back was to her, all hunched shoulders and dark hair. Mila checked the needle and eased off the gas.

Otabek didn’t look back. He moved robotically, lost in thought – or maybe just lost.

Mila stopped the car and clambered out. Otabek paused, half-glancing over his shoulder as the door slammed shut, but it was only the motion of looking. He didn’t see her.

But he was safe.

“Beka,” she called softly, her fingers tracing the tiny vial in her pocket. “Hey, Beka, it’s me.”

She didn’t run towards him. It felt as though he might vanish into thin air, or startle and bolt – well, that one was a possibility. Otabek had stopped and was watching her approach, blank-faced, as if he couldn’t quite figure out why she was there.

“Mila?” He didn’t have any shoes; his feet and ankles were stained black with dirt and dust from the road.

“Yeah,” she whispered. She had them both back now… almost. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

Mila shepherded Otabek back to the car. He was falling asleep on his feet, she realized – at any moment, he might drop and sleep where he landed. She kept talking quietly, chattering about anything meaningless and safe, until they were both buckled in.

The key was in the ignition, but Mila didn’t start the engine. Instead she sat, biting her lip and trying to figure out where to start.

“I can’t go home,” Otabek said. “It’s- I can’t.”

“What?”

“I promised my sister yesterday,” he mumbled.

Fuck, Otabek had to call his parents, but not when he was like this.

“We’re not going to Almaty now, don’t worry.” Mila unhooked the needle from the rearview mirror and shoved it into the glovebox with a silent _thank you._ “You can sleep if you want. There’s a blanket in the backseat.”

He stared out the window like he hadn’t heard her.

“Beka?”

“No.” He reached back for the blanket but just let the bundle rest in his lap, wrapping his arms around it. “I don’t- I don’t like waking up.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “But you have to sleep.”

“When you wake up, do you ever forget?” Anyone else – almost anyone else - would have thought he sounded calm. “That… he’s gone.”

“Sometimes.” That Yuri was gone. That he was back. It still hurt, and she’d had weeks to heal, weeks knowing that Yuri was alive. She’d spoken to him.

“I can’t.” He hugged the blanket tighter. “I keep wishing- just for a second, I want to forget but I never do. I wake up and I know.”

For Otabek, it felt like only a few days. Her heart broke again.

She had to tell him, but she couldn’t, not yet. Not until he knew at least some of what was going on. God, now she understood Yakov’s expression.

“Beka.” Mila started the engine just to hear the doors lock automatically. It would buy her a few seconds, if she needed them. “I, um. I know- Yakov and Viktor told me everything so I could help find you. And because I was- I was really scared.”

Otabek was motionless; he didn’t blink or breathe as Mila scrambled to explain.

“It’s okay, Beka, it’s okay, you’re a werewolf now but that’s- I mean I guess it’s not fine but I know you, I know you’re still the same person.” Her hand was tight around the glass vial. “It, um, they said it can happen when someone’s new and especially if they’re overwhelmed, that… that they can stay a wolf longer than they meant to without even realizing, I guess wolves aren’t very good with time? But-“

“How long?” Otabek’s voice shook.

“Less than two weeks.” By a day. “Don’t worry, we took care of everything, your family knows you’re okay.”

He jerked upright. “Do they know? They can’t-”

“No,” Mila interrupted. “They don’t know. Only a few people do. We didn’t… they had to tell some people, like me, but only when they had to. Your family doesn’t know about that.”

“Two weeks. I…” His voice trailed off and his gaze unfocused, drifting back out the window.

Time to bite this particular bullet. “Beka, I found you with a spell. That I helped make.”

“That’s what I smelled,” he mumbled. “On you.”

“On- never mind.” Mila gritted her teeth. “I have another one, just in case. It’s not a tracker, it- it’s kind of a sedative? It’ll make you sleep for a few hours. Maybe longer.”

Otabek exhaled slowly. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“What? Beka, no, I’m not going to fucking knock you out just because! I only want you to know so- so you’re not worried. If you start to, um, change.” He was curling in on himself, doing his best to disappear, and Mila cursed under her breath. “Would you fucking stop that, I’m not scared of you, I’m not letting you get lost again!”

He blinked, his surprise nearly rocking the car beneath them, and nodded.

“So. I need to tell you something important. Really good, but also really weird and it doesn’t sound real and you might freak out a lot if you believe me at all. If you start to shift we can- we can deal with that, but…” She paused. Her foot was pressed on the brake pedal, though the car was still in park, and her ankle cramped from the strain from slamming it to the floor. “I can tell you now or in a few hours, when we’re closer. You can decide when. It doesn’t have to be now.”

“Later.”

Mila started to reply, but Otabek’s expression was blank and unfocused once more. She wasn’t sure how much of their conversation he’d even remember.

She took out her phone and sent two texts.

_I found him, Coach. He’s okay. He’s kind of wreck, I mean, he might be in shock? But he’s safe. Driving back now. I’ll have him call his parents when he’s more with it._

And:

_I got him. We’ll be there soon._

 

:: :: ::

Mila was right: in the end, he had to sleep.

It was a new twist on the confusion of waking up. Otabek wasn’t sprawled on the forest floor. Instead, his head bumped the passenger window as the car jolted over each crack in the road. A pillow was wedged between his shoulder and the door, but it had slipped down and his cheek was pressed against the glass.

It hadn’t been another dream, then. The details had been blurry, slipping from his mind before he could notice them, but now they trickled back. Mila was driving. She hummed softly to herself, accelerating and slowing with the nervous jerkiness of inexperience as horns blared and impatient commuters roared past them. The tang of magic was heavy, underscored with a heady mix of dried plants and… Viktor. Vampire. It must be Viktor’s car.

Otabek stretched, rolling the kinks from his neck, and waited for Mila to notice that he was awake.

“There’s a truck stop soon.” She glanced over and he gripped the door handle, silently begging her to keep her focus entirely on the motorway. “I was gonna pull over there, get gas, and I think they have showers you can use? And food. And toilets. All that jazz.”

“Right.” Something was rustling in the glovebox in front of his knees. Otabek didn’t open it. Instead, he breathed around the permafrost in his chest. Exit signs zipped by: _Torzhok._ They were driving south. He jerked his thoughts back.

Mila sighed shakily as she turned off the engine. “Let’s figure out the shower first. I don’t know if they’ll let you into the shop part otherwise.”

“I don’t have-“

“Clothes? Yeah, you do, I robbed your flat.” She took a duffel bag out of the trunk and tossed it to him. “Toothbrush and stuff too.”

Questions bubbled up, but he was too dizzy to voice them.

Mila didn’t take her eyes off him as she paid for the shower. “Beka, are you- is it…” She fiddled with the strap of her purse. “God, ignore me, just go take your fucking shower. I’ll be right outside. Actually, hold on a second, let me grab something out of the car.”

         Two weeks. It didn’t feel like two weeks.

         Otabek raked the knots from his wet hair, combing it out with his fingers as best he could, and stuffed the bundle of dirty clothes into the trash. Even if he could wash the dirt out, they were more rips than fabric.

Outside, Mila was playing with a thin stick – no, a needle. She looked up and tucked it into her bag. “Better?”

“Yeah.”

Their meal – he wasn’t sure whether it was lunch or dinner or even breakfast – turned out to be questionably fresh sandwiches and kefir. They ate in the parking lot.

“How did you know where I was?”

Mila took out the needle and let it dangle from its thread, which wasn’t looped through the eye, but instead tied around the middle in a messy knot. The point bobbed and swung towards him.

Otabek stepped sideways. It followed. “… Oh.”

“I couldn’t find you until you turned back,” she explained apologetically. “It’s like… so you use a bit of hair or something to target spells, right? And I guess your hair can only find human you, and I’d need, well, fur to find wolf you. I looked. There wasn’t – I couldn’t find any. I would have come for you sooner. Except I wasn’t even trying the right ones, they kept exploding because they were for humans and I was using silver for most of them so it just…” She waved her hands. “Fizzled. I’m sorry it took so long, Beka.”

She’d looked for him, even when she knew. Guilt bit down on him. There had been so much fear, so much worry, so many tense conversations with Yuri that veered closer into arguments because he couldn’t trust anyone. That was what Yuri had been thinking.

And then Otabek had vanished.  

“I should call my parents.”

Mila reached into her purse again. Otabek gaped as his phone appeared in her hand. She rolled her eyes. “I said I went to your flat, didn’t I?”

She didn’t have keys. There had never been a reason to give a set to anyone other than Yuri.

“Before you call…” She paused. “Coach told your parents he’d found someone to look for you, and that they knew you were at least safe, but. I mean. He didn’t tell them about you. They- all they know is that you had some sort of breakdown and disappeared for a while.” That wasn’t a lie, he supposed. “They’re not going to ask any questions right now, just… just that you’re okay.”

His hands shook as he unlocked his phone, and they shook as he ended the call.

“Beka, it’s not your fault,” Mila murmured, her hand on his arm. “This happened to you. You did everything you could. It’s going to get better now. I promise.”

“I dragged Yura into it.” He was choking. She should leave him on the side of the road. “Mila, I love him so much, and I still-“

“You don’t make Yura’s choices for him.”

“That night. We-“

“I know. Breathe, Beka. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

He tried to focus on holding his shape as the edges of his body flickered and warped at the edges of his consciousness, but his thoughts wouldn’t quit their lonely search for hope. She couldn’t know. He hadn’t told anyone – it had been too new, and then too raw. And Yuri… Yuri hadn’t had time. The keys. Someone must have let her into his flat. He’d been wrong about so much, but not this.

“Should I tell you everything now?” she asked. Her heartbeat fluttered like a trapped bird, thrumming in his ears.

“No,” he whispered. “I’m not- I’m-“ He held out a trembling hand. He couldn’t hold himself together as it was. “I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t believe you.”

“Okay,” she breathed. “Later. When we can show you. Let’s go.”

“Let me drive.”

“Are you-“

“I like driving. And I, um, I have more practice.”

“Thank god.”

She threw him the keys.

:: :: ::

_Send me a picture?_

He watched the dots appear as Mila started to type, stopped, began again.  _I'll try._

_Just fucking ask, Baba, he only gets upset when he doesn’t know you’re taking a photo._

_You still haven’t told him._

_I’m sorry. He wanted to wait. I don’t want to make him panic. He’s dealing with a lot right now._

_Well, maybe he’d have less to deal with if he knew I wasn’t fucking dead._

Yuri threw the phone down.

It wasn’t his phone, not yet: it was new, wiped clean of his contacts, his accounts, everything. They didn’t trust him. Viktor and his grandfather watched him every moment, making sure he didn’t do anything stupid. Don’t call anyone. Don’t go near the windows, hidden behind their makeshift shutters. Don’t go near the locked door. Sunlight, silver, ash.

Even through his frustration, Yuri couldn’t blame them. He’d left the worry lines in his grandfather’s face and the redness around Mila’s eyes.

He was so fucking stupid, and no one would tell him so.

         The phone buzzed. It was a photo of Otabek, his hands on the steering wheel and tired eyes fixed on the motorway ahead.

_I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be an ass. Fuck._

_It’s okay, Yura._

_You don’t have to feel sorry for me, got it? I fucked up._

Typing. Pause. Nothing.

         _Is he okay?_

         _He will be. I’m going to drive now. We’re almost to the city and he’s getting tired. Twenty minutes, then I’ll tell him, promise. We’ll be there soon. Love you._

Tired. Otabek had been tired for months. She meant he was breaking down again. Yuri bit down a scream.

         _I love you too. Thank you._

Yuri turned off his music and listened. How had Otabek stood it? Every creak as the house settled, every drawn breath, every hum and whir of the fridge assaulted his ears. He’d get used to it, Viktor said. He’d learn to tune it out. He was still adjusting.

         Yuri didn’t want to adjust.

           His grandfather was asleep, finally. He insisted that old folks always woke up early, but Nikolai’s face went sharp with grief whenever he looked at Yuri. And Viktor… that was harder. Viktor was silent, motionless, until he turned a page of his book or walked down the hall, but Viktor was in the kitchen, typing something on his laptop.

         Yuri turned his music up again, high enough that it scratched against the inside of his skull, until he could ignore his own silence.

         He wandered into the kitchen, sat down, and tugged one earbud free.

         “Hello,” Viktor said. “Have you been up for long?”

         “You know exactly when I got up,” growled Yuri. “Why don’t you just get one of those fucking baby cameras so we can stop pretending?”

         Viktor had watched him die, and Viktor had brought him back. Yuri didn’t know what he was supposed to say, but it wasn’t this.

         “I was only making conversation, Yuri.” Viktor closed his computer. “What’s on your mind?”

         “Nothing.”

         “Mila and Otabek should be arriving soon, yes?”

 Why had Viktor even bothered to ask? He knew what Yuri was thinking.

“If Mila doesn’t wreck the car.” The silence grew until Yuri filled it. He hated the noise, but its absence was worse. “He’s going to hate me.”

“That doesn’t seem very likely.”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t he?” Yuri snapped. “I fucking got myself killed being an idiot, and everyone had to go to my _funeral,_ and then he broke down and disappeared because I messed him up so bad and he was already pretty fucked up. And it’s not like he reacted well to seeing you.”

“Otabek was scared of me, which is understandable. It was quite a shock for him.”

“And this won’t be?”

“Yuri.”

“I can’t believe you let him disappear. You were supposed to be here to help _him!_ ”

“I’ll take your concerns under advisement.” Viktor sighed. Somehow, it was even more annoying now that Yuri knew he didn’t actually have to breathe. “Have you eaten?”

_Drunk._

“I’m not hungry.”

“Your body is not sending the same signals. You don’t feel hunger the same way.”

“Ugh.” Yuri folded his arms on the table and let his head fall forward. “Why the hell did you even bother?”

“I’m sorry?”

“With… me.”

Viktor started to speak, but trailed off before he’d voiced the first syllable. It was the first time Yuri had seen a fracture in his calm. Or, Yuri realized, his façade of confidence.

“Because I could,” Viktor said eventually. “You deserved more than that.”

“And I deserve this?”

“It will get easier, Yura.” Not what he meant. “To be honest, I wasn’t thinking- no, I would have made the same choice.” Viktor laughed softly and without humor. “All I knew in that moment was that Yasha would never forgive me if I didn’t try, and I’d never forgive myself.”

Fuck. Yuri hated emotions.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, hoping that Viktor didn’t hear him, and then Yuri dragged himself to the fridge.

For breakfast today, he had a choice of… blood, blood, or blood. Wonderful.

“You’ll have to be careful not to overwhelm him,” Viktor cautioned. “Let him come to you. He might need a while to adjust. As you’ve noticed, big changes can be more striking with heightened senses, and so Otabek may have more difficulty coming to terms with everything.”

“What if he runs?”

“I’ll catch him. We’re not taking a chance on him vanishing again, Yura.” Viktor shrugged. “If he loses control, step out of the room and I’ll restrain him until he calms down. If something goes wrong, Mila’s spell should do the trick.”

“And if he-“

“If the dishes sprout wings and fly through the house, we’ll ask Mila to pick up a few butterfly nets before the shops close.”

Well then. Yuri’s teeth caught on the edge of the mug, slopping blood down his chin. “Fucking-“

“Go clean up and brush your teeth,” Viktor instructed, tipping his head. “I heard the car.”

“How-“

“Practice. Now go, don’t make this any more stressful than it has to be.”

 _Fuck._ Yuri bolted for the stairs. Mila would be talking to Otabek now, of course he’d put it off to the last minute – he was more scared of good news than bad news, the idiot. He had a few minutes. Not enough time for a shower. Shit. Otabek would smell the blood. Of course he would, the whole house stunk of it. Not human blood, but it was bad enough. Still, Yuri had to go and spill it all over himself. Way to go, Plisetsky. Turn this into even more of a horror show than it was already.

Towels could be bleached, right? Yuri stuffed the bloodstained cloth into the shower and turned on the fan. He’d get it later. Toothbrush. Brushing his teeth. Bloodbreath. That had to be worse than morning breath.

He spat pink foam into the sink and raced downstairs.

“- just keep breathing, remember, you don’t have to worry about losing control, we can handle that. Ready? Do you want to take a minute?”

 _Don’t,_ Yuri begged. _Beka, get your ass in here, please._

A hand on the door. Yuri spun to face Viktor, panic rising. What time was it?

“It’s dark,” Viktor murmured. “Don’t worry. But step back a bit.”

Of course. He couldn’t let himself be seen.

The door opened, and there was Otabek, blinking into the shadowy hall.

:: :: ::

Yuri stood in front of him, and Otabek forgot how to breathe.

He stepped forward and stumbled, felt Mila’s hand on his elbow, saw Viktor tense, ready to knock him to the ground. As if he would run. As if he could.

He was off-balance. Four people, two heartbeats. Otabek refused to blink, afraid that Yuri would flicker and vanish like a mirage or a dream. His eyes blurred, closed for an instant, showed him Yuri’s pale, still face.

Yuri’s face was pale, but he wasn’t still, not like he had been, not like Viktor was still. Yuri was made of motion; it was something Otabek hadn’t realized, not consciously, not until it was gone. Every thought in Yuri’s mind floated across his face, every feeling, tiny glimpses into his head.

 _Yura,_ he tried to say, but his throat closed around Yuri’s name.

A small smile curved Viktor’s lips, just visible in the corner of Otabek’s frozen gaze, and he put a hand on Yuri’s shoulder to push him forward.

“But-“

Yuri’s voice broke the shackles holding Otabek in place. He fell forward. Yuri caught him.

“Yura,” he whispered. “God, Yura.”

“Fuck, Beka, I’m so sorry.” Yuri’s arms were cold; his body was icy against Otabek. But he was there. “I’m okay now. I’m sorry.” Yuri hugged him tighter. Otabek’s ribs creaked and Yuri flinched. “Shit, sorry.”

“Me too,” Otabek mumbled, and he let Yuri lead him into the sitting room and the ancient, sagging sofa. Viktor and Mila stayed behind.

Yuri was crying. It took Otabek a moment to notice – there were no sobs, no hiccups, no uneven breath or wet sniffs. There were only tears streaking down his face.

“Goddammit. You’re the one supposed to be freaking out now, not me.”

“I’ll get there.”

“I- we-“ Yuri sputtered. Otabek smiled, watching Yuri grimace as he tried to say a dozen things at once and managed none of them. “I could have just fucking kissed you, we were dumbasses, you can’t turn anyone unless you’re a wolf and you actually bite them, it’s not like the flu or some shit.”

“… Oh.”

“And now I’m the biting problem because my fucking teeth are weird and I keep getting my lip and I can’t drink right and- fuck, how did you do it?”

“What?”

“Everything’s gone,” Yuri whispered. “I can’t skate. Never. The whole world thinks I’m gone. I can’t even go outside because someone might see me. I can’t stay in Russia, Viktor says.”

“Where are you going?” He couldn’t lose Yuri, not again.

“Germany, with him.” Yuri shifted closer, filling space Otabek didn’t know was still between them. “He said- you should come, too. There’s werewolves there. They helped us find you. They said- they can help. But you don’t…”

“I’m going wherever you go.” Otabek closed his eyes. It was safe now. “You got me through it. Through everything.” Something loosened inside him, and Otabek curled further into Yuri’s arms. “I think I’m going to freak out now.”

“Dork.” Yuri’s fingers trailed through his hair. “I’ll be right here.”

And he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now I have to write grad school essays. 

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
> 

> 
> I reply to all comments! It may take me a few days, but I'll get there. Additionally, please feel free to leave a comment in whatever language you're most comfortable using - I'll translate it!


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